Archive for December, 2009

December 31, 2009 4

Old Year’s Accomplishments/New Year’s Expectations

By Robert Minto in Prospects

As the necessary — and all too-often neglected — prequel to my New Year’s thoughts, I have compiled my favorite personal accomplishments of the year 2009.

I successfully proposed to Rachel, thereby demonstrating that there is hope for us all.
I read over 300 books.
I broadened my mind in countless ways, some of the most important of [...]

Tags: academic conference, Accomplishments, calvinism, christian mysticism, College, contemporary philosophy, genesis, habit, history of ideas, liberation, marxism, mythology, personal accomplishments, pilgrimage, protestant theology, resolutions, top graduate schools, web venture

December 29, 2009 5

Pluralism and Self-subversion

By Robert Minto in Politics, Self-subversion, Strategy

Pluralism is generally acknowledged to be a desirable condition for contemporary societies. Yet pluralism’s strongest advocates tend to be the oppressed, those who recognize it as an ideal not yet achieved. For them, advocating pluralism is a sort of survival tactic. The unoppressed, on the other hand, tend to advocate it (to a limited extent [...]

Tags: advocates, aspirations, co-existence, dissenters, dwelling, hearts, hegemony, human psyche, intellectual power, pluralism, political correctness, pride, reverse psychology, Self-subversion, subversion

December 29, 2009 1

Simone Weil and the Whiskey Priest: A Spirituality of Suffering

By Robert Minto in Cross(es), Gospel, Motivation, Obligation, Suffering

Simone Weil’s two letters on the subject of baptism, to be found in the opening pages of her famous “Waiting for God,” remind me — in certain ignoble places — of my own history with the sacrament. At one point, Weil allows a backgrounding fear to break through her reasoning:
The mere thought that, supposing I [...]

Tags: alienation, baptism, dependence, graham greene, motives, power and the glory, sacrament, sainthood, simone weil, social participation, solidarity, waiting for god

December 27, 2009 1

Rahner on Theology and Progress

By Robert Minto in History, Progress, Theology

A while back, I posted about how each theologian needs to define theology in order to credibly proceed in his chosen science. In the ensuing comment-dialogue, it became apparent that back of my assertions lay a conception of two kinds of theology: frozen (or static) theology and progressive (or dynamic) theology. This conception seemed to [...]

Tags: church dogma, divine faith, intellectual knowledge, karl rahner, kinds of theology, nature of theology, rc church, revelation, sufficiency of scripture, theologian

December 27, 2009 0

Why Zizek Is Worth Reading…

By Robert Minto in Appreciation, Politics

Apart from the example of his tumbling ideas, the invigoration of his rhetoric, the penetrating asides, the humor, and his elucidations of Lacan, Hegel, Marx and Hitchcock, I think the following quotation from this old interview with Zizek best summarizes why I think he’s worth reading:
Today, whenever somebody tries to risk something politically, you immediately [...]

Tags: ethics, hegel, hegel marx, History, hitchcock, holocaust, humor, interview, lacan, Marx, mass murder, pragmatism, twentieth century, worth reading, Zizek

December 27, 2009 2

A Christmas Meditation on “Avatar”

By Robert Minto in Appreciation, Film, Incarnation, Responses

I couldn’t agree more with Adam Kotsko’s thought re: the film Avatar in which he observes that critiques like that of Ross Douthat, which simply locate the film as one more instance of Hollywood pantheism, have little value either as commentaries on the text of the film or as cultural critique. Rather, the primary religious [...]

Tags: adam kotsko, allusion, avatar, cradles, dead human body, duality, Incarnation, painters, pieta, religious theme, ross douthat, sully

December 19, 2009 2

Obligation Reflux: A Decisive Self-Subversion

By Robert Minto in Prospects, Scripture, Self-subversion

Well, my intention to resurrect my programmatic reading of Scripture has foundered on the rocks of reconsideration. The problem is that in my intuition, first, of the value of pursuing the theme of obligation, and then, in my second formulation, of pursuing the theme of self-sacrifice, I have merely been clumsily approaching the issue of [...]

Tags: Bible-reading, Jurgen Moltmann, old testament theology, relationality, retraction, Scripture, self sacrifice, subversion, Walter Bruegemann, Walther Eichrodt

December 17, 2009 8

Why We Should Ask “What Is Theology?”

By Robert Minto in Prospects, Strategy, Theology

One of the tasks of every theologian must be to determine the answer to this question. He or she knows the tradition in which they long to work—but the temptation will always be to regurgitate what previous theologians have written. The value of such regurgitations is purely rhetorical or commemorative, a maintaining of inherited knowledge. [...]

Tags: 20th century, contemporary society, economic groups, liberation, literary criticism, literary critics, oppressed groups, racial groups, sources of theology, textbook writers, theologian, theologians, theological truth

December 15, 2009 0

Obligation Redux

By Robert Minto in Obligation, Prospects, Scripture

Faithful readers may remember my short-lived Bible commentating plan from earlier in the year. Here and here I began my project of reading through Scripture in search of “Obligation.” That project petered out due to the time-demands of the semester and—probably—methodological confusion with regard to what constituted an obligation. As the new year approaches, and [...]

Tags: cross, death and resurrection, glory of god, hypothesis, interpretation, Jesus, Obligation, old testament, redemption, resurrection of jesus, revelation, self sacrifice, topical study

December 13, 2009 3

The Electronic Side of Note-taking

By Robert Minto in Organization, Scholarship, Strategy

Given certain off-line comments I received in response to my recent post about note-taking, I thought that in order to be as useful as possible to interested readers I ought to write briefly about reference management systems.
So you take lots of notes—you write summaries and compile indices, focusing on your most important topics of interest, [...]

Tags: annotated resources, bibliography, EndNote, freeware, google desktop search, integration, interface, jabref, mla, note-taking, reference management software, Scholarship, word processor

Tom SB: Hey Joel, Frank Schaeffer has been politically vocal lately, more so than since his involvement with the...
Joel Veldkamp: Dear Tom - Thanks for adding your insights about Frank Schaeffer and correcting my mis-impressions....
Robert Minto: @Joel: isn’t the key the phrase “what should be a private funeral”? Doesn’t the...
Joel Veldkamp: Congratulations, Dan! Duke is lucky to get you.
Joel Veldkamp: Kenny - Sweet! Agreement. I don’t think the justices usually argue from any specific part of the...

Archive for December, 2009

Old Year’s Accomplishments/New Year’s Expectations

Pluralism and Self-subversion

Rahner on Theology and Progress

Why Zizek Is Worth Reading…

A Christmas Meditation on “Avatar”

Obligation Reflux: A Decisive Self-Subversion

Why We Should Ask “What Is Theology?”

Obligation Redux

The Electronic Side of Note-taking

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