Damned If You Do . . .
I have been reading the Old Testament a lot lately, both out of humble repentance from the Marcionism of my Evangelical upbringing and because I’m in a class on it right now, OT II, in which we are covering the fascinating, disturbing, and sorely neglected territory of wisdom literature and the prophets.
Theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, who like me fancies himself a comedian sometimes, writes something to the effect that having an original thought means forgetting where you read it. He’s right. I’m sure the thoughts that follow here are not original. I believe they originated most directly from the prophets themselves and from a talk entitled “Why Mercy Looks Easy, Why Justice is Hard” given by Martin Marty a few weeks ago at my school.
Wendell Berry, who also fancies himself a comedian and in my opinion succeeds at it more often than Hauerwas or I do, said at a conference last week, “This is what the intellectual life is all about: some stupid person says something and another stupid person corrects him.” According to two of my favorite thinkers, by presuming to be an intellectual and sharing my thoughts I run the risk of being both unoriginal and stupid. Fortunately I have no power to speak of and a very limited readership, so at least I am not unoriginal, stupid, and dangerous.
The first problem with being a prophet is that you are called to do things just because God said so and not because it is likely to help much of anything from a temporal standpoint.
The second problem is the human tendency to shoot the messenger; the better you are doing at your job the more likely you are to be killed in nasty ways at the height of your career.
The third problem is a secret—though if I told you I wouldn’t have to kill you since you wouldn’t understand anyway.
Just kidding. Seminary nerd humor. Sorry. Let’s move on.
The third problem with being a prophet is that if one is still buying cheap cotton from the South one doesn’t really have much business talking abolition.
Theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, who like me fancies himself a comedian sometimes, writes something to the effect that having an original thought means forgetting where you read it. He’s right. I’m sure the thoughts that follow here are not original. I believe they originated most directly from the prophets themselves and from a talk entitled “Why Mercy Looks Easy, Why Justice is Hard” given by Martin Marty a few weeks ago at my school.
Wendell Berry, who also fancies himself a comedian and in my opinion succeeds at it more often than Hauerwas or I do, said at a conference last week, “This is what the intellectual life is all about: some stupid person says something and another stupid person corrects him.” According to two of my favorite thinkers, by presuming to be an intellectual and sharing my thoughts I run the risk of being both unoriginal and stupid. Fortunately I have no power to speak of and a very limited readership, so at least I am not unoriginal, stupid, and dangerous.
The first problem with being a prophet is that you are called to do things just because God said so and not because it is likely to help much of anything from a temporal standpoint.
The second problem is the human tendency to shoot the messenger; the better you are doing at your job the more likely you are to be killed in nasty ways at the height of your career.
The third problem is a secret—though if I told you I wouldn’t have to kill you since you wouldn’t understand anyway.
Just kidding. Seminary nerd humor. Sorry. Let’s move on.
The third problem with being a prophet is that if one is still buying cheap cotton from the South one doesn’t really have much business talking abolition.
posted by Ingrid at 11:01 PM
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