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#626: By Gracious Powers
Mar. 6th, 2020 10:23 pmThere are some famous Christians who actually did great things and were diverse examples of the good stuff faith can lead to. Julian of Norwich and her feminist imagery is one of them. Teresa of Avila ditto, but see also this mythbusting about an anachronistic quote attributed to her. The medieval era doesn't have a monopoly on them; when I was in undergrad, my campus pastor was writing her PhD about the sacrifice of Isaac and Kierkegaard's interpretations. Similarly, my pastor out west liked to quote this dude, who provided our lyrics today.
I get why academic-y Lutheran types would be fans of Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer. Not only do they come from specifically the Lutheran tradition (so we have more of a "claim" on her than eg Julian who kind of "belongs" to the entire Western church), but they're also fairly "modernist" by the standards of modern theology. So some people like to be "look at us! We're not just these stuffy old traditionalists, we also give you, um, martyrs who could get killed in the Holocaust! Go us!" Sadly, those of us not blessed with such empathy-fu are like "I don't caaaaaaaaaare, and even if I did, that's not even something to brag about." So I kind of bounce off this kind of thing. Like, wake me when you need someone to throw in front of a trolley, but otherwise, I don't actually want to hear about how suffering is all deep and meaningful. I mean, I do, in the ultimate sense of Jesus'. I just don't really care about people trying to sound hip and down with the cool kids.
I get why academic-y Lutheran types would be fans of Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer. Not only do they come from specifically the Lutheran tradition (so we have more of a "claim" on her than eg Julian who kind of "belongs" to the entire Western church), but they're also fairly "modernist" by the standards of modern theology. So some people like to be "look at us! We're not just these stuffy old traditionalists, we also give you, um, martyrs who could get killed in the Holocaust! Go us!" Sadly, those of us not blessed with such empathy-fu are like "I don't caaaaaaaaaare, and even if I did, that's not even something to brag about." So I kind of bounce off this kind of thing. Like, wake me when you need someone to throw in front of a trolley, but otherwise, I don't actually want to hear about how suffering is all deep and meaningful. I mean, I do, in the ultimate sense of Jesus'. I just don't really care about people trying to sound hip and down with the cool kids.
