From the promotional blurb on the website:
Rather than restaging the arguments for and against the ordination of openly gay clergy, this day-long conference analyzes the threatened schism in the Anglican Communion in order to examine wide-ranging and interrelated issues of religion, secularism, globalization, nationalism, and modernity. How and why, we ask, has homosexuality come to serve as a flash point for so many local and global conflicts?
I find it strange that no one involved in this conference has anything to do with Anglican studies or formation at Yale. In fact, I can’t figure out what ties any of these people have to the Anglican Communion. Emilie Townes figures quite prominently in this conference, and she is an independent Baptist. I’m confused.
I always heard you could major in English at Yale without taking a Shakespeare course. You can now apparently major in absolutely nothing at all. What in the heck is the Department of LGBT Studies? And when you have that degree, exactly what is it you do? Bueler? Anybody?
RE: “How and why, we ask, has homosexuality come to serve as a flash point for so many local and global conflicts?”
An amusing question and one that reveals the bias of the conference. It’s a bit like asking “How and why, we ask, have [open marriages] or [adult consensual incest] or [polyamory] or [insert any open sinful behavior here] come to serve as a flash point for so many local and global conflicts?”
The real question is: “How and why, we ask, have certain churches come to accept certain sins as holy and blessed behavior such that those churches are being torn apart and are in rapid decline? Why did they choose same-gender sexual relations as the sin to bless and affirm?”
First Apostle (#1),
I agree. The absence of anyone from EDS is remarkable. Even if the conference organizers weren’t interested in bringing in conservative commentators, Ian Douglas and Miranda Hassett (the latter is actually remarkably judicious in her scholarly judgments) are both local.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
#4 — Actually, EDS is in Cambridge, not New Haven, and so would not be local. Yale does have Berkeley Divinity (formerly independent, but for the past several decades incorporated into the Yale Divinity School). EDS (also known as “Eccentric Divinity School,” has a reputation for being on the far side of the reasserter divide, and probably would express the same sense of wonderment regarding “why oh why did this have to happen.” I don’t know as much about Yale/Berkeley, but I suspect that they tend to the reappraiser side of things. It would be far more interesting if the organizers were to invite somebody from Trinity (or maybe even Nashotah).
In any event, it probably does not matter, as this looks like more of a sociological look at the issue, and not a theological (but that is just a guess).
#2, you are correct — when I was an undergraduate at Yale (early 1980’s) one certainly could major in English without taking a course in Shakespeare. In the wake of the 1960’s, the concept of a core curriculum had been abandoned, and (of course) has not been revived. I was not an English major, and did take courses in Shakespeare, but, as time goes on, have become painfully aware of the serious gaps in my education. Yale is very good at turning out very articulate, engaging graduates who may or may not know anything about anything (this is probably true of many other well known schools). Since most Yalies tend to be articulate and engaging going in, it can be hard at times to discern the value of spending four years in New Haven.
#5 Franz–Thanks. I guess if you have a degree in LGBT studies, you just go forth and articulate. Personally, I went to a rather pedistrian, non-Ivy League school, in Texas, of all places; but I could actually do something when I graduated.
If this were a church conference, perhaps “sin” would be part of the vocabulary. But it’s an academic conference, not a religious one. It’s not interested in church growth. It’s interested in what our controversy signifies to the culture at large. For them, theism – or even metaphysics – are intellectual mistakes.
It’s the outside world examining us.
As an aside, it has some pretty heavy hitters. Comaroff and Appiah are rigorous, challenging and demanding scholars.
Franz,
Becuase of the academic resources of Yale, Berkeley attracts students from all sides in the Episcopal Church. I’m here now, and I’m a traditionalist. For the most part, I’m far from alone. The current faculty and administration are mostly not way out on the liberal end. In a sense, the overall ethos here is rather neutral. That can be good and bad, but I believe I came to the right place.
I have come to believe that these folks really just don’t get it. They actually think that there must be something they are missing, that is, since their assumptions about the ‘godliness’ of homosexuality must be correct, they must be not understanding the particular pathology of those of us who stand against the behavior. If they could just figure out our particular sickness, they think, then they could help us be healed and ‘come to the truth.”
That is really the only way I can begin to figure all this out. Everywhere, in many different denominations, churches are splitting up over this issue of sinful behavior. But these folks still don’t understand.
And so i must ask – – what in the Hell is the matter with them? I confess, I don’t get them, either.
Actually, I’ve asked this question (of myself and others) quite often over the past several years and have never gotten a satisfactory answer. Why IS the church laying it all on the line for homosexuality, of all things?
And maybe it’s not so bad that no Anglican is represented on the panel. Anglicans seem to be firmly entrenched on the issue and it might be good to receive some scholarly perspectives from quality people who don’t have any vested interests.
#8 – I’m glad to hear that there are a variety of voices at Yale/Berkeley. I have a friend who was at Yale Div. in the early to mid 90’s, and he felt like a fish out of water. Perhaps he is jaundiced, or perhaps he spent too much time with the Congregationalists, and not enough with the people on the Berkeley side. ïŠ
#5 –A liberal education has many virtues, and I don’t advocate a strictly vocational approach to higher education. My criticisms of Yale arise that it (along with many colleges and universities) has abandoned any sense that there out to be a core curriculum. It seems that each college or university should be able to have the guts to say, in effect: “Here are some basic things that anybody who wishes to be described as an educated person ought to know.†I would not expect them to be the same at every institution. In fact, I would expect that each institution would have a different take (although there would potentially be a large area of overlap). It could make the higher education landscape far more interesting than it is now.
The main post also demonstrates concurring trend: the growth in “identity majors,†in which the identity at issue aspires to be a discipline. Thus, one sees departments of Afro-American Studies, Latin-American Studies, Chicano Studies (not to be confused with more general Latin-American Studies), LBGT studies, Jewish Studies, and on it goes. Of course, if one enters such a program, one can probably exist in a little bubble, in which one’s preconceptions and attitudes will never, ever be challenged.
#10 Hi Teatime
The school of ‘LGBT Studies at Yale University’ – scholarly people who have no vested interests at all I expect.
Franz–I agree. Actually I had a classically, traditional university education. Lots of English, history, science etc. and I even took Latin and four Shakespeare courses. I received a BA in Journalism, so I had a “job skill” when I graduated. But out of 120 + hours only 30 were allowed in my major. I went to Marine Corps OCS right out of college (it was a very different time from when you graduated) and never used my degree, but I have never regretted the classical education.
#12 Pageantmaster,
The LGBT studies department is sponsoring it but are you saying that they’ve stacked the panels with themselves, too? I don’t know the reputation of the scholars listed (many not from Yale) but folks here mentioned some of them being “solid.”
Frankly, I like the questions they’re asking (those posed on the site) — questions that really DO need to be asked. I may not agree with the conclusions they reach (if they plan to reach conclusions) but I am glad that they’re discussing these issues. I don’t count myself in either political camp and am very tired of and discouraged by the same old rhetoric and the hardening of hearts by the most militant of both sides.
First Apostle (#8),
I went to YDS/Berkeley in the early 1980s, graduated in 1983, attracted by the excellent academics, especially in biblical studies (in those days, Brevard Childs was there, and Luke Timothy Johnson, and Richard Hays, plus Leander Keck, etc.). But I haven’t given a dime to YDS in years. I don’t perceive it to be neutral myself, when according to what I hear, no church is allowed as a site where you can do fieldwork if it’s committed to an “anti-gay” position. Berkeley has certainly moved to the left since the glory days when Philip Turner was the dean.
BTW, I attended St. John’s Episcopal on Orange Street all three years. It was the only conservative evangelical parish in New Haven (I’m leaving out East Haven).
David Handy+
jkc, um – “godliness” is not a part of the vocabulary. It’s a conference examining what this division represents for cultures at large. It’s not a conference about normativity. It’s trying to understand what is happening.
It’s sometimes hard for Christians to think in terms beyond “right” vs. “wrong.” But the individuals in the conference are respected by people who are in the academy, and aren’t Christians, and some Christians as well.
It will be a fascinating conference, I suspect. Granted, the people in the conference, because they are agnostic about homosexuality, will disturb individuals who insist that homosexuality is a disorder.
RE: “But it’s an academic conference, not a religious one. It’s not interested in church growth. It’s interested in what our controversy signifies to the culture at large.”
Again, pretending as if “academic conferences” don’t have religious agendas is silly. All people have religions whether they admit it or not — and no “academic conference” is objective or has no agenda attached to it, no matter how hard the scholars pretend otherwise.
The fact that they’re asking the question “why homosexuality” as if that is some mystery is a joke.
Of course John Wilkins won’t think it a joke because he has the same religion as the purportedly objective scholars.
But one might as well title the conference “why murder” or “why Incan sacrifice” or “why polyamory” and pretend to be all mystified by that too.
If the scholars find the fact that a few teensy denominations taken over by gnashing secularists who want to approve and bless gay sex and those teensy denominations are now splitting is a surprise and shocking, then they know even less than their degrees would indicate about a topic that they are purporting to study — namely “Christian religion” and “Anglican schism.”