Thinking about the foolishness of God’s love vs the wisdom of humans.
“For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:25)
In the Bible we find many books including Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.
Other human wisdom include mainstream “-isms.”
We call these healthy boundaries.
Jesus is our best example as He is a human.
He appears to us first as a helpless baby, dependent on his parents. He loves selflessly, to the point of his own humiliation among his peers.
Jesus’ love is the revelation and model of God’s love.
Not as an institution or government or set of principles or self preservative boundaries or RELIGION itself, but simply in response to Christ, who is revealed AS LOVE, as FOOLISH LOVE in everyday ordinary life.
My struggle is every humans’ struggle, not wisdom, but love.
My struggle is responding to hate and condemnation and humiliation by foolishly loving my abuser, my oppressor and my enemy.
Love is patient and kind.
Wisdom builds boundaries of self-preservation.
Love is not self-seeking and keeps no record of wrongs.
Wisdom is faith in the world.
Love is faith in the divine.
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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
As someone\u2019s who\u2019s read the book, this review strikes me as tremendously unfair. It mostly faults Adler for not writing the book the reviewer wishes he had! https://t.co/pqpt5Ziivj
— Teresa M. Bejan (@tmbejan) January 12, 2021
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x