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AR 25:29 - Stephen King: under-appreciated theologian?
In this issue:
ISLAM - an extensive verse-by-verse Christian commentary on the Quran
POP FICTION - fuel for "a complete introduction to religion course"
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER - perpetuating false perceptions
Apologia Report 25:29 (1,486)
July 22, 2020
ISLAM
The Quran with Christian Commentary: A Guide to Understanding the Scripture of Islam, by Gordon D. Nickel [1] -- Richard Ostling explains: "The extensive verse-by-verse commentary is by Mennonite Brethren scholar Gordon D. Nickel (Ph.D., Calgary), who directs the Islam program at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies in India and he formerly taught in Pakistan. His chief consultant was J. Dudley Woodberry (Ph.D., Harvard), an Islamic studies professor and former dean at Fuller Theological Seminary with research experience in 35 Muslim countries.
"This work arrives with fond blurbs from experts at universities in Birmingham (U.K.), Bonn, Brussels and Oxford. Nickel's commentary, and topical articles from a dozen other specialists on Islam, accompany the well-regarded English translation of the Quran by A.J. Droge of the University of Toronto at Scarborough. ...
"The commentary explains and responds to Islam's viewpoints on Jesus (yes a prophet and messiah, but neither crucified nor divine) and on Jews and Christians, and attacks upon the Bible's veracity. There's important discussion of interpretations in Islam's minority Shi'a branch and of the complex history of Quran texts, which were standardized at a crucial 1924 conference in Cairo. ...
"Nickel's tone seeks to be friendly and respectful but - important for journalism and for cultural awareness otherwise - he clearly defines the substantial differences in belief between the world's two dominant religions.
"Journalists will be particularly interested in the Quran's 126 verses on killing and fighting in terms of religious duty, analyzed by Ayman W. Ibrahim of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. 'The Quran is not primarily about warfare,' he writes, but the theme is prominent....
"Another timely article, on treatment of women, comes from Linda Darwish of Canada's St. Francis Xavier University. She says that, in practice, women's voices have been muted or absent while men created Islamic culture, applying the Quran's 'problematic passages' as 'normative ideas, laws, or standards of practice.' (Nickel supports Droge's translation of much-discussed verse 4:34 as saying husbands should 'strike' rebellious wives as a last resort.)"
Ostling concludes by asking what it might be like if Muslim scholars produce such a modern commentary on the Bible? GetReligion, May 28 '20, <www.bit.ly/31viwrn>
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POP FICTION
America's Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of Stephen King, By Douglas E. Cowan [2] -- this review by Joseph P. Laycock (Texas State University) finds: "Cowan suggests that when thousands of Americans read King's stories, they are confronted with questions about ultimate meaning - questions that are generally deemed 'religious.' ...
"Cowan suggests that King's writing continually challenges the answers we have been given about such topics as the existence of unseen order and theodicy, not to mention death and the afterlife. Indeed, raising these existential questions is part of what makes King's stories so frightening. It is King's challenges to what we think we know that make him 'America's dark theologian.' Laycock notes that Cowan's focus ignores King's "forays into other genres such as mystery and fantasy."
Cowan invokes "William James' idea of religion as the belief in an 'unseen order' to arrive at the idea of 'the metataxis of horror,' that is, the fear of a change in the sacred order. What truly terrifies, Cowan suggests, is not the threat of a monster or killer, but the hideous realization that the world does not work as we thought it does - at least not anymore. Cowan quotes Danse Macabre [3], King's 1981 nonfiction book on horror, 'It is not the physical or mental aberration itself which horrifies us, but rather the lack of order these things imply,' and suggests that King understood the principal of the metataxis of horror before Cowan coined a neologism and fleshed out its sociological significance."
In the first chapter, "Cowan first dissents from the assumption, common in scholarly critiques of horror, that 'Whatever looks like religion, or could be interpreted religiously, must mean something else.' Next, he suggests that King is a theologian not because he provides answers to religious questions, but rather because he poses questions to religious answers. ...
"Chapter 2, 'Thin Spots,' fully investigates the idea of an 'unseen order' across King's stories [and] also traces the idea of an unseen order through King's influences, especially Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft. ...
"Chapter 3, 'Deadfall,' surveys King's storyworlds that deal with ghosts and the afterlife.... Cowan suggests that ghost stories function as a kind of 'God-talk' or a popular theology about our hopes and fears regarding the afterlife. Chapter 4, 'A Jumble of Blacks and Whites,' explores religious socialization in King's stories, with a special emphasis on conflict between Catholics and Protestants.... Chapter 5, 'Return to Ackerman's Field,' analyzes human attempts to interact with the unseen order through ritual....
"Chapter 7, 'If It Be Your Will,' considers the problem of theodicy in King's stories, with special focus on Desperation, in which God commands characters to battle a demon. ... Cowan suggests there is not a consistent 'King mythos' akin to Lovecraft's 'Cthulhu mythos.' Rather, King shifts the cosmology from story to story, continuing to raise questions and deny readers any true sense of stability."
Laycock concludes, in part: "In theory, one could teach a complete introduction to religion course built around this work and some selected Stephen King stories." Nova Religio, 22:4. - 2019, p129, <www.bit.ly/3izd5On>
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SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
What factors led America on its current path of hateful discord? Kyle Shideler's review of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center, by Tyler O'Neil [4] for The Federalist (Apr 24 '20) provides significant, though sometimes unintended insight.
"On March 14, 2019 the Southern Poverty Law Center publicly fired its founder and long-time leader Morris Dees on accusations of racial and sexual discrimination, and announced it would bring in outside assistance to investigate the climate of the organization Dees had built and ruled over for almost half a century.
"Since its founding, the SPLC had been treated - at least in the mainstream media - as an unquestioned arbiter of what qualifies as racism and hatred. Being added to the SPLC's 'Hate List' was the death-knell for any number of organizations that ran afoul of Dees. ...
"[T]o keep the money flowing, the SPLC kept insisting hate groups and white supremacy were expanding. To do this, an ever-widening definition of hatred was required. The SPLC expanded its list of 'hate groups' to include not just the shrinking numbers of vile KKK and neo-Nazi groups, but groups that were merely controversial and even harmless. ...
"For its efforts the SPLC was richly rewarded, posting nearly half a billion dollars in assets, including more than $120 million in offshore accounts.
"Things started unraveling Dees and the SPLC in 2018, when the organization was forced to settle with Maajid Nawaz for more than $3 million. Nawaz, a liberal Muslim reformer, sued for defamation for being named to the SPLC's 'Hate List.' ...
"O'Neil begins by explaining how, as its name suggests, the SPLC was never intended to target hate groups at all. It was designed as a public interest law firm to help impoverished southerners, particularly blacks, on death row. Dees had sought to make his fortune as a lawyer and in the direct mail business during the civil rights era, rather than participate in the momentous effort of that era. ...
"After only nine years of operation, the SPLC had grown in capacity and financial wherewithal to the point that its chief direct mail specialist Michael Fidlow left the organization, pronouncing his work completed. Entering the '80s, the SPLC adjusted its focus to emphasize only its fight with the Klan, causing the organization's legal team - excluding Dees - to resign. ...
"In spite of Dees's questionable leadership going all the way back to the SPLC's founding, its influence only expanded. ...
"O'Neil spends a fair amount of energy deconstructing the list, which includes any number of ludicrously mislabeled 'hate groups'....
"And many of the 'hate groups' that aren't just plain silly may never have existed at all. ...
"While the results of much of the SPLC's 'Hate List' research may have been clownish, being smeared with the 'hate group' label had deadly consequences. In 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins Jr. entered the lobby of the Family Research Council and opened fire, wounding Facilities Manager Leo Johnson, before Johnson wrestled Corkins' gun away. ...
"Industry collusion with the SPLC reached its zenith post-Charlottesville, as major charity rating organizations Guidestar and Charity Navigator began displaying the SPLC Hate Group designation on their websites, which potential donors use to identify a non-profit's bona fides. This was followed in some cases by merchant services organizations refusing to process donations to some organizations labeled by the SPLC."
Shideler discusses the arenas where the SPLC's influence has advanced and suggests: "Perhaps most disturbing is in the state of Michigan," referring to "the Michigan Department of Human Rights [where] executive director Agustin Arbulu openly referenced the SPLC hate group list as the impetus for establishing a new Hate Crimes Unit ... 'giving its endorsement'" to the SPLC.
"In August 2019, ABC News noted somewhat gleefully that seven of the leading Democratic candidates for president had openly called President Trump a 'white supremacist.' Left-leaning national security journalists openly seek the designation of domestic white supremacist groups as foreign terrorists even while they accuse the president's advisors of being 'extremists.' A substantial industry has popped up perpetuating the false perception that white supremacists (or just white American men in general) are the gravest terrorism threat by aggressively massaging the statistics while evidence continues to show that the threat of jihadist terrorism remains the far more lethal challenge."
Shideler concludes: "The SPLC may be corrupt. It may even be racist and sexist. But for those seeking to silence their political opponents, the SPLC is useful. For that reason alone, it is likely to endure." <www.bit.ly/31NwsgE>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - The Quran with Christian Commentary: A Guide to Understanding the Scripture of Islam, by Gordon D. Nickel (Zondervan, 2020, hardcover, 672 pages) <www.amzn.to/38cSXNe>
2 - America's Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of Stephen King, By Douglas E. Cowan (NYU Prs, 2018, hardcover, 272 pages) <www.amzn.to/2NRZO33>
3 - Danse Macabre, by Stephen King (Gallery, 2010, paperback, 512 pages) <www.amzn.to/2Czsy0G>
4 - Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center, by Tyler O'Neil (Bombardier, 2020, paperback, 240 pages) <www.amzn.to/3iCAiiI>
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