Sunday, February 16, 2014

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Thomas Cahill video: "The People's Pope"

Transcript here and here (video below)
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 Part 1 (The People's Pope):
 
Part 2 (about Heroes and Heretics):

easier to describe stasis than movement: the problem of history


Thomas Cahill:

Many historians fail to mention it [the Irish contribution] entirely, and few advert to the breathtaking drama of this cultural cliffhanger. This is probably because it is easier to describe stasis (classical, then medieval) than movement (classical to medieval). It is also true that historians are generally expert in one period or the other, so that analysis of the transition falls outside their--and everyone's?--competence. At all events, I know of no single book now in print that is devoted to the subject of the transition, nor even one in which this subject plays a substantial part.


In looking to remedy this omission, we may as well ask ourselves the big question: How real is history? Is it just an enormous soup, so full of disparate ingredients that it is uncharacterizable? Is it true, as Emil Cioran has remarked, that history proves nothing because it contains everything? Is not the reverse side of this that history can be made to say whatever we wish it to?  (p. 5, context, see excerpt here)



masculinist Mennonite nonviolence?

Intriguing quote, from an article about the sexual abuse allegations against Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder:


..there's always been something oddly masculinist about the way Mennonites teach nonviolence. Mennonite pacifist discourse evolved as a response to the dominant ideal of warrior masculinity, a way for men to justify not going to war; it has never been as fully formed or as celebrated for its challenge to interpersonal violence...link, 
The Woody Allen Problem: How Do We Read Pacifist Theologian (and Sexual Abuser) John Howard Yoder?

Pope Francis Blesses Porn Star’s Parrot

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