From my bookshelf
and some self promotion
I am allergic to self-promotion but it turns out that, like most allergies, gradual exposure can reduce immune response. I’d very much like more of you to read my writing, especially the longform pieces that are published elsewhere. As someone who considers themselves primarily a teacher, but also as someone who is without a classroom at the moment, I find the greatest satisfaction in getting feedback from readers. I love a hard room and a difficult question, and I’d benefit from a critical readership as I take some risks in the upcoming year (among them releasing my first book!) Writing is only worth it if someone is reading, after all.
So, here are a few questions that might convince you to read my latest piece over at Comment.
There are a lot of images of Jesus. Are they all good pictures? Are some better than others? Can we tell the difference?
What is the difference between an image and propaganda?
Can images become propaganda? What happens when we use religious images of Jesus to promote our politics or social concerns?
There is a long history of Christian images being used to support the state’s political agenda. This turns religion into a “tool” for gaining the form of power people desire. Sadly, some of the clearest examples of this come from Nazi Germany, where Christ’s Jewishness was eradicated to make him into an “Aryan” man.
In evicting Jesus of his Jewishness, Nazi German theologians intended to make Jesus “more like us”. But in doing so, they also began to eradicate Jews from Germany- not just Jewishness. Violence was not far off when religion became a tool.
Retaining Jesus’ Jewishness, then, can serve as a significant stop gap against such egregious forms of supremacy.
But how, exactly, does relying on *particularity* render Christ’s *universality* more available?
(this is a main question of my book, for the record)
And what does it mean when we envision Jesus as George Floyd? Are we recruiting Floyd, and Jesus for that matter, into our politics when we do so?
Might Jesus’ Jewishness serve in the end as an important check on the insatiable desires of our ideologies? I think it must.
Give it a read, and let me know what you think!
And now to my Bookshelf:
I’ve been reading some interesting things this week.
In reading related to religious themes, I picked up Katharine Dell’s Theology of the Book of Proverbs for some research and was very impressed. She introduces readers to current movements in literary criticism and conventions of reading Proverbs without getting bogged down, and treats the critical themes of Proverbs fluently. She’s a great writer, which isn’t always the case in theology. Highly recommend. I also of course finished Elisabeth Elliot’s biography, which you can read about here.
In fiction, I’ve been reading Andrew Klavan’s most recent Cameron Winter mystery. I love Klavan’s mysteries, but this one is a bit of a head scratcher due to some genre-bending decisions on the part of the author. The juries still out for me. I’ve also been reading Stephen King’s If It Bleeds, a collection of short stories. I highly recommend this one.
In technological criticism, my copy of Neil Postman’s Technopoly is far overdue but i’m reluctant to return it. I’ll have to buy my own copy, which tells you that a book was worth the read. Postman does in accessible language what other thinkers do in much less accessible prose- and he loses nothing in the process. I’m also reading The Shock of the Old: technology and global history since 1900 be Neil Edgerton, which is quite overdue. I’ll need to buy this one as well. Its fantastic. I just picked up George Kubler’s The shape of time: remarks on the history of things (1962) which, if its good will be very good. I’ll report back.