You've every cause to doubt me

[sovay]

So . . . despite getting up for it at six-thirty this morning, we still don't have a bed. We have part of it upstairs. After several phones calls to the delivery service and the company we ordered it from, we are waiting for the rest. And hoping. And very tired. If we slept a combined total of three hours last night, I'd be surprised. I have said I'll be at home, awake, and near my phone until this situation is sorted out, however, so I think that's the rest of my day.

Some other things make a post.

1. Auditions! Upcoming! The Post-Meridian Radio Players are holding theirs next Monday and Tuesday for Tomes of Terror: Nevermore and Theatre@First at the beginning of September for The Trojan Women. Do you like Edgar Allan Poe? Do you like Euripides? I am afraid I cannot offer a crossover, but you could audition for both shows and it would almost count. Seriously, sign up now. Theater in Somerville this fall is going to be great.

2. Can I get someone with a liberal Christian perspective on this issue? (Called to my attention by shirei_shibolim, who wanted to double-check the Latin for "argument by shrimp." I believe we settled on argumentum a squillis.)

3. Robot Hugs says intelligent things about harassment. Also about scheduling and identity, but I kind of want to see the harassment one reblogged everywhere as a PSA. Also, because it never gets old: Cativan.

4. It wasn't on the dollar rack, but the Harvard Book Store has now furnished me with a used copy of M. John Harrison's Viriconium (2005), the omnibus. I faintly feel ashlyme was responsible.

5. Thanks to the AV Club, I am intrigued by the pilot of Outlander. Cunnilingus in a castle.

There had better be a bed and some sleep soon. I am tired of making lists.

Comments

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

Can I get someone with a liberal Christian perspective on this issue?

I have thirteen minutes before I have to reappear in the seven hour meeting of doooooom, so this will be brief:

I mostly agree with the article, both for the stated reasons (argument by shrimp presupposes a "we" that is protestant and implicitly white, it is disrespectful of Jews (and Muslims!) who keep dietary and other purity laws) and for the additional reason that people who use the argument by shrimp are often smugly self-righteous and don't actually have a good hermeneutic position of their own. Probe them about any of the other "clobber" verses and they completely fall apart, much like the proponents of said clobber verses, actually. ALSO, Christians, specifically, as opposed to atheists or secular humanists, who present that argument completely fail to understand why we believe we are exempt from Jewish dietary laws (it was basically a sop to Gentiles who were struggling to conform to Jewish culture and went hand in hand with that whole "no you don't have circumcise your adult men" thing). There's a lot more I could say about American Christendom and the Law but that would take more than the seven minutes I have left, and would probably be a tangent.

There had better be a bed and some sleep soon. I am tired of making lists.

*hugs* I hope you get some rest soon.

[sovay]

disrespectful of Jews (and Muslims!)

(True! I wonder if that would have been flagged for the author of the article if the popular pseudo-argument had been "God hates pork.")

and for the additional reason that people who use the argument by shrimp are often smugly self-righteous and don't actually have a good hermeneutic position of their own.

I am not entirely surprised to hear that. I was surprised to read it was a Christian tactic; it reminded me of Richard Dawkins on his eternal quest to prove that all religion is a bunch of inconsistent gibberish. Disprove one part of it, the whole thing falls apart, right?

why we believe we are exempt from Jewish dietary laws (it was basically a sop to Gentiles who were struggling to conform to Jewish culture and went hand in hand with that whole "no you don't have circumcise your adult men" thing).

Which I did not know, because I have very patchy knowledge of the history of early Christianity and the ways in which it differentiated itself from Judaism, and is one of the reasons I wanted a Christian perspective. Thank you!

There's a lot more I could say about American Christendom and the Law but that would take more than the seven minutes I have left, and would probably be a tangent.

GOOD GOD DO NOT BE LATE TO THE SEVEN-HOUR MEETING OF DOOOOOOM I AM SO SORRY.

I hope you get some rest soon.

Thank you. I hope the meeting is not as interminable as it could be!

*hugs*

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

It has actually been going well and might not even warrant the extra ooos in dooooom. Two more hours. . .

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Fred Clark at Slacktivist has made a number of very good posts about the clobber verses and how countering them with clobber verses of your own is a bad tactic. He traces the roots of this dynamic in American Christianity back to the abolitionists, when you had pro-slavery advocates quoting pro-slavery verses, and anti-slavery advocates quoting anti-slavery verses, and then a growing strain of anti-slavery advocates saying "don't look at the trees; look at the forest." And the forest, quite clearly, has an arc that bends toward good things like liberation and respect.

[sovay]

pro-slavery advocates quoting pro-slavery verses, and anti-slavery advocates quoting anti-slavery verses, and then a growing strain of anti-slavery advocates saying "don't look at the trees; look at the forest." And the forest, quite clearly, has an arc that bends toward good things like liberation and respect.

Oh, interesting. Has this tactic been applicable to liberation movements since?

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Applicable, absolutely -- you can do it with gay rights. Applied? Depends on who you're looking at. He's definitely in favor of that approach himself, and there are people who use it.

For me, the really enlightening thing was finding out how much of the "literalist" approach has its roots in the defense of slavery. It explains . . . a lot.

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

and there are people who use it

I'm fond of Patrick Cheng's arguments in Radical Love, as well as the critical biblical scholarship Peterson Toscano has done. Stephanie Spellers' Radical Welcome is a good introduction of sorts for the back-patting white barely-left-of-center kind of congregation, the ones that want to be nudged towards being better but still have emotional attachments to the June Cleaver lifestyle.

[sovay]

Applicable, absolutely -- you can do it with gay rights. Applied? Depends on who you're looking at.

Yeah, I was trying to ask if it had been successfully applied, not if it was ever relevant again. I've been awake for a very long time now.

For me, the really enlightening thing was finding out how much of the "literalist" approach has its roots in the defense of slavery. It explains . . . a lot.

Yeah.

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

Agreed on Fred Clark. I like and respect him a great deal.

[sovay]

Agreed on Fred Clark. I like and respect him a great deal.

I have never read any of his blog. I have just put "Slacktivist" and "clobber verse" into Google, however, so this shall be swiftly remedied.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Him and Ta-Nehisi Coates are probably the two most consistently enlightening bloggers I read. Clark is a white evangelical who detests the general direction and politics of white evangelicalism over the last few decades, and calls them out on their bullshit from an insider position. Which is very different from -- and for me, at least, much more educational than -- arguing with them from the outside.

I got into reading his blog because of his painstaking takedowns of the Left Behind series, which he calls the Worst Books in the World. ("Worst" because they are both terrifyingly influential and bad in every aspect, from their theology to their logic to their prose.) It's been more than ten years now, I think, and he's only on book three . . . .

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

I continue to be impressed that he hasn't burned out completely on the Left Behind takedown blogging. For a while there was a LBFridays fansite with fanfic, but I can't remember now what it was called.

[sovay]

It's been more than ten years now, I think, and he's only on book three . . . .

That is way too much Left Behind still to go. I am amazed by his tenacity and worried I need to mourn for his brain cells.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Here is Fred Clark showing why Christians don't have to keep the food rules in Leviticus, without mocking other rules in Leviticus.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2004/07/16/the-abominable-shellfish/

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Not just that, but he goes on in other posts to talk about how a lot of evangelicals will insist that passage applies to food and only food, because food is what shows up in the vision. Which requires you to ignore the fact that Peter gets a vision of food and then goes and applies the lesson to people. It's an excellent example of why you need to look at the story rather than the verse.

I will say that I think the argumentum a squillis has a valid and non-anti-Semitic angle, albeit one that comes bundled with problematic alternate interpretations. The point to me is not that only stupid people think God hates shrimp; rather, only stupid people claim they read the entire Bible as the inerrant and utterly literal word of God, and then ignore the parts of it they don't feel like dealing with. There's a great deal of hypocrisy in the standard white evangelical hermeneutic; even if Peter's vision meant the dietary laws (but only the dietary laws) can go away, where's his vision of mixed-fiber clothing? If you can wear cotton-poly blends, why isn't gay sex okay? I disagree with the people who do in fact take all the laws of Leviticus as rules society must follow, but my disagreement with them is different from the one I have with the white evangelical tradition.

[beowabbit]

The point to me is not that only stupid people think God hates shrimp; rather, only stupid people claim they read the entire Bible as the inerrant and utterly literal word of God, and then ignore the parts of it they don't feel like dealing with.

That’s how I’ve always taken that response to people quoting Leviticus 18:22 against homosexuality — as criticizing the bigots’ familiarity with their own (most typically some flavor of Protestant) religious tradition.

(My eyes sort of glazed over a couple paragraphs into that article the message I got from it was that no argument against oppression that doesn’t presuppose and depend on the author’s particular Correct interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures is worth making. By anybody, whether they adhere to that particular tradition or not.)

[sovay]

Here is Fred Clark showing why Christians don't have to keep the food rules in Leviticus, without mocking other rules in Leviticus.

That's very neat. (Wow, "God Hates Shrimp" has been around longer than I realized.)