18AR23-41

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AR 23:41 - God's love, "the modern mind's last blasphemy?"

In this issue:

FEMINISM - beware the "patriarchal norms that entrap and infantilize women"

POP-FICTION - "Does the figure of Jesus simply resist fiction?"

RELIGIOUS PLURALISM - how being "spiritually fluid" means ignoring salvation and orthodoxy

Apologia Report 23:41 (1,407)

December 19, 2018

FEMINISM

Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality, by Shani Orgad <www.bit.ly/2CmDTyo> [1] -- Publishers Weekly (Oct 29 '18): "In this opinionated study, media professor Orgad (Caring in Crisis [2]) interviews 35 London mothers to explore why 'highly educated women who could afford childcare' would make the 'retrogressive' choice to abandon careers and be stay-at-home mothers. [I]n her recounting and analysis of interviews, which rely frequently on speculative interpretation, she casts her interviewees both as passive, tearful victims and as silent colluders with patriarchal norms that entrap and infantilize women. ... American followers of the 'mommy wars' may not feel the need to add this to their bookshelves."

Library Journal (Oct 26 '18): "Because of the small interview sample and the UK emphasis, this work is recommended mainly for extensive feminist collections."

Kirkus (Nov 11 '18): "An academic analysis of the causes and results - personal and social - of highly educated women leaving the workplace to raise children. [Orgad] sometimes appears condescending or even horrified at [mothers'] acceptance of their lot. [A] preconceived agenda limits the value of her analysis of individuals."

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POP-FICTION

"A Norwegian Novel Complicates the Canon of New Testament Fiction" by Christian Wiman -- did you know: "There is an entire subgenre of serious modern fiction that focuses on Jesus and other characters from the New Testament. Nikos Kazantzakis, José Saramago, Par Lagerkvist, Norman Mailer, Jim Crace, Colm Toibin, C. K. Stead: The list is long. It's also mostly male, though recent books by Naomi Alderman, Michèle Roberts and Mary Rakow have begun to right the gender imbalance.

"All of this literature tends to be 'blasphemous.' Jesus is a wacko or a charlatan, a prodigious or pathetic lover. But since the audience for these books is almost entirely secular (including those readers who may call themselves religious), it's an open question as to just what blasphemy could mean.

"Children of God [3], the first novel by the Norwegian writer Lars Petter Sveen to be translated into English, is the latest addition to this canon. It avoids the most obvious pitfall and is in no way propaganda for any 'side.' Turning the last page, a reader will have little sense of what Sveen himself believes with regard to Christianity. Its neutrality seems to me a strength.

"Another is its indirection. Focusing primarily on minor characters from the Gospels - the Samaritan woman at the well, a crucified thief, the disciple Andrew - the book conjures more power from (and for) its shadowy central figure than it might have. It remains a story rather than a lesson.

"And yet, the book is almost thoroughly inert. The voices ... all sound exactly the same. ...

"Does the figure of Jesus simply resist fiction? To some extent, yes. One reason the Gospels are so powerful and durable is that they seem at once unnecessarily repetitive and frustratingly unfinished, even when they have been 'finished' by later hands. Given the effect he had on people, isn't it likely that Jesus had a sense of humor? ... This is the quicksand that draws novelists.

"The most successful (i.e. most troubling) fictional depictions of Jesus tend to be the most reticent. ...

"Most piercing of all, perhaps, is the tiny 1942 'Prologue,' by Simone Weil, in which Jesus is both brusque and loving, completely immediate and utterly, cruelly absent - all in the span of two pages. Alone at the end, the speaker says, 'And yet something deep within, a particle of myself, can't help thinking, all the while trembling with fear, that perhaps, in spite of everything, he does love me.' It's a small faith, but it is one. It may be the last blasphemy available to the modern mind." New York Times Book Review, Oct 21 '18, p19. <www.nyti.ms/2EkiZSx>

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RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

When One Religion Isn't Enough: The Lives of Spiritually Fluid People, by Duane R. Bidwell (ordained Presbyterian minister, practicing Buddhist, and professor of practical theology, spiritual care, and counseling at Claremont School of Theology in California) [4] -- Beacon Press: "An exploration into the lives of people who embrace two or more religious traditions, and what this growing community tells us about change in our society. ... These 'spiritually fluid' people celebrate complex religious bonds, and in the process they blur social categories, evoke prejudice, and complicate religious communities. ... Jewish-Christian intermarriage led the way in the US, but religious diversity here is only increasing: almost four in ten Americans (39 percent) who have married since 2010 have a spouse who is in a different religious group. Through in-depth conversations with spiritually fluid people, renowned scholar Duane Bidwell <www.bit.ly/2Sa9Q22> explores how people come to claim and be claimed by multiple religious traditions, how spiritually fluid people engage radically opposed truth claims, and what this growing population tells us about change within our communities."

Library Journal (Oct 15 '18): "Bidwell examines the advantages polyreligious adherents bring to a global culture and clearly makes the case that multireligious identity does not seek salvation or orthodoxy since those terms are specifically Christian. He further discusses the increasing complexity of interreligious dialog, the expansion of conventional religious categories, and the growing acceptance of multiple religious identities."

Publishers Weekly (Nov 5 '18): "In this underdeveloped book, Bidwell makes a strong argument in favor of embracing more than one religious faith, but insufficiently examines the downsides of religious pluralism. ... Bidwell states that religious fluidity in the U.S. is more common than ever, but only supports his argument with personal stories ... rather than with data. Though Bidwell gives examples of human 'flourishing' from religious fluidity, he also assigns victim status to religious multiplicity followers, calling the risk of 'coming out' as dual faith 'enormous.' Bidwell's examples of religiously fluid people are all very high profile (Noah, Barack Obama) or extremely specialized (Buddhist Christian Paul Knitter), which may leave readers who are neither a bit at a loss. Although his discussions of theology are interesting, his insistence on the threat to multi-religion Westerners comes off as trivial compared to the real persecution of truly marginalized religious groups."

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality, by Shani Orgad (Columbia Univ Prs, January 2019, hardcover, 304 pages) <www.amzn.to/2QOeuFT>

2 - Caring in Crisis? Humanitarianism, the Public and NGOs, by Irene Bruna Seu and Shani Orgad (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, hardcover, 165 pages) <www.amzn.to/2UVQ0cQ>

3 - Children of God, by Lars Petter Sveen (Graywolf, 2018, paperback, 256 pages) <www.amzn.to/2B2Sw7U>

4 - When One Religion Isn't Enough: The Lives of Spiritually Fluid People, by Duane R. Bidwell (Beacon, 2018, hardcover, 200 pages) <www.amzn.to/2ElLS0M>

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