Tag Archives: research

How Can You Tell If You are doing Critical Scholarship 4

Posted on by
1

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL CURRENT AND FUTURE EDITORS

How Can you tell if you are doing critical scholarship part 1

part 2

part 3

Dear aspiring editor of the next great volumes in religious studies,

Thank you for your outstanding work in the fields of the Bible, theology, and the scientific study of religion. If you are receiving this letter, it is because I have sent this out of concern for the current state of academia and my love of history. Recently, while you have been doing ground-breaking work, there seems to be a bit of a bad habit of reading your values and anachronistically lining them up with little known marginal figures in history as a counter-narrative. While this approach may be accurate in some circumstances, this is not the way to go. If you say that such and such believed in rugged individualism before it was en vogue, please make sure to back up your claims with quotes and citation. I should not have to take your word for it, and better yet, I refuse to.

Take for instance William L. Andrews’ Sisters of the Spirit a text that contains the first-person spiritual narratives of three black women evangelists. Andrews, in his introduction, calls all three of these women feminists and proponents of independence. However, this is far from the truth. A serious and close reading of Zilpha Elaw’s Memoirs shows that she is not only more closely aligned with evangelicals who are complimentarian but that she takes on independent women head on. “The laws of Scripture invest parents with the trust and control of their daughter” hardly seems like a case for indepedence (61). “That woman is dependant on and subject to man, is a dictate of nature” (ibid). Although I could go further, this close reading of the text quite simply means one thing: Zilpha Elaw was not what the editor says she was. She does not have the same lens as the editor. Although her views on gender are more complex than I have spelled them out here (I will have some posts coming up in the coming days on Zilpha Elaw), she certainly was not a fan of Miss Independent. Sorry Beyonce!

So please future editors of the world, please do not say too much in your introductions or you’ll just wind up being refuted in a blog post like this or essay someday. Don’t make me send you this letter again as a reminder.

Sincerely,

Rod

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

More Posts - Website - Twitter

For Scholars and Bloggers Alike: A Few Tips for how to do a Bio

Posted on by
Reply

This may seem so simple to some, but I am constantly looking for ways to update my own bio. For now, I have just a 3 phrases– Preacher of Hope, Black Scholar of Patristics, Writer for Nonviolent Politics. How did I come to this? One of my colleagues suggested that I take a paper that I believed summed up what I want to do, and place all of the text into a word cloud. These labels stuck, but they are fluid and may change.

However,Jim, a regular commenter on here asked for some advice for how to begin his own bio. And here is my response to his draft for his professional bio (I have placed in bold the important tips to take away):

Hey Jim,

You have a lot going on here, and it can be shortened. It’s become common in “scholarly” circles to have a 3 phrase summary with what you want to do; based off your draft statement, here is what I would go with something like—

“Legal scholar, Writer, and Justice Advocate for Indigenous Persons”

In our interactions, I think this is appropriate. Feel free to make any edits. Adding something to do with comparative religions or anthropology would also be good.

As you go further in your bio, try not to reference texts, especially ones that your audience may not be familiar with. I do find your concern for practice to be quite appealing, and I think that you would do well to emphasize this part of what you are doing. I found it helpful in my own work to summarize my thesis/final project as a masters student with a talking point; for me, I went with: A Post-colonial interpretation of the theology of Clement of Alexandria.

For you, rather than the three paragraph you provided for you work, would be something like:

“My current research and life’s work is dedicated to exposing the injustice practices by clergy/religious leadership towards poor and low-income people in Indigenous communities in the implementation of Uniform Arbitration Act.

My work also addresses concerns pertaining to the canon. Questions behind these concerns include: Does canon have any relevance for us today? Can we recover notions of canonization without avoiding issues of reception and interpretation, i.e., the histories of mission’s complicity in empire building? These are the inquiries that drive my present writing. It is my experience with persons from Indigenous context that is responsible for my search for an emancipator use of the canon.”

Remember, online and with blogging, brief and concise are always good, especially in our society where attention spans run short.

Two paragraphs like this would be sufficient enough. Hope this helps.

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

More Posts - Website - Twitter

How Can You Tell if You are Doing Critical Scholarship 3

Posted on by
8

Part 1: You are surprised by your findings.

Part 2: You are double-checking references by authors rather than taking them at their word.

Now, for number 3. I usually do not bother reading a lot of blogs but on my twitter feed, I have seen several posts by one Stephan Huller on Clement of Alexandria. To say the least, the posts and the titles of said posts read more like Page 6 of the New York Post.

In my research on Clement, I don’t ever believe I came across one scholar who tried to claim that Clement had a close relationship with St. Mark. Yes, Clement did use the Secret Gospel of Mark, but you know what, he also quote Greek and Roman tragedies? Does that mean he was a playwright as well? The funny part about all of this, Huller’s scholarship on Clement o A is much more like the T.V. show Seinfield, it’s the show about nothing. How many times do you have to go over the same passages in Eusebius without referring to any texts written by Clement himself? You are not “myth-making”; myths in many cases, can guide us into truth. Sounding much more like Christian Reconstructionist historian David Barton, where every historian prior to him is “misguided,” Huller is just using his interpretation of Eusebius to put forth a weird conspiracy theory pertaining to the Gospel of Mark.

The relationship between Clement and Origen of Alexandria are superfluous, and really of no concern to me; as I have argued before, the time frames for Clement and Origen are uncertain, and because their teaching differ, at least in my reading, I choose not to place them in the same category.

Is there anything that proves Clement himself was living in Alexandria?

Let’s see, well, in his writings he refers to the temples of Isis, the Egyptian religions, and he relies on the work of Philo of Alexandria. So, I think it would be a little important for him to be teaching to his audience, wouldn’t that make a little sense? His works do not fall from the sky, and neither did an angel hand him a scroll. No, see, Clement’s Logos Christology comes in the historical context of Roman Egypt, where the folk spoke Greek, and the Jews were persecuted, not being able to become full citizens. In fact, in Clement’s Sermon/Exhortation to the Greeks, he suggests that the Hellenized Egyptian deities are really demons. Why else would he say that unless he had an audience who were located in Egypt?

The lesson we should learn here, how can one tell if you are doing CRITICAL scholarship, as opposed to pushing an agenda or conspiracy theory, is by acknowledging our own limitations. In Huller’s last few post on CoA, it sounded like Huller knows the man personally as if he shook Clement’s hands just the other day. You are free to believe what you want as well as “research” what you want, but freedom outside of any notion of truth or beauty or good is untruth, a lie.

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

More Posts - Website - Twitter

I NEED YOUR HELP: How do you explain what you are reading to others?

Posted on by
6

A problem I always have is I seem to not be able to find the right words to explain to lay-people or family members what I am reading or doing research on.

I have sometimes summed up what I do by saying, oh, I am just reading on theology and race, or I read books on theology. But that’s about my limit.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

More Posts - Website - Twitter

Evangelicals Exposed?

Posted on by
2

Or is there not a difference between research and propaganda?

I have noticed that there is more “investigative reporting” that goes under the guise of research to supposedly see what white evangelicalism looks like.  It occurred to me that the narrative goes something like this:

The investigator- 1st,I went into such and such evangelical church or college. 2nd, I made a lot of friends and I found out that white evangelicals were much nicer than their monstrous image on television. 3rd, overall, they are really nice people, and sincere in their beliefs but they need to be more about social justice and peace issues.

Exhibit A and Exhibit B

Okay, seriously, who has never heard these criticism before? Seriously? Really? Have these “researcher ever read anything by Brian McLaren or any other author involved in the emergent/emerging so chic and cutting edge church movement? Apparently not.

Give me a break!



RodtRDH

Rod the Rogue Demon Hunter, Preacher of Hope | Black Scholar of Patristics | Writer for Nonviolent Politics. Destroyer of Trolls. It must be that angry puppy.

More Posts - Website - Twitter