Yay! Finally! and a short thought on parents...

I just got word, all, that my prof has finally figured out how to access my blog and graded it. I know that my posting has probably eliminated any readers that I might have had, but I got an "A"!

So I will begin posting more regularly after my month-long forced hiatus.

For today's post, I want to share part of a conversation that some of my friends and I just started having about the challenges of enacting and speaking a new perspective of Christianity.

My friend, Brad, wrote:
>And yeah, those few days w/ my parents, while largely enjoyable, also
>reminded us of the sorts of issues that will need to be confronted if
>we're going to establish a healthy relationship w/ them. Most of you
>know that my relationship w/ my parents has never been great, and has
>often been strained. The problem is that my values won't let me just
>ignore them - nor, I suppose, wld that allow me to be an emotionally
>whole person.

And I responded:

I am very glad that you have shared this with us.

Jenna and I just spent basically two weeks with my parents: first, we were helping them install a new
hardwood floor in their kitchen, and second, we hitched a ride with them to my cousin's wedding over
Memorial Day weekend. It was such a struggle all the time.My dad wants to have these phil and theo.
debates with us kids so that he feels that he is doing his duty as a spiritual leader of the family, but his
definitions and understandings of things stretches things so thin.

You all know that I have never been the most subtle person to argue with, and my dad and I got into a
heated debate about the role of Paul's epistles in the canon. I have personally been growing more and more
dubious about why Paul's writings are any more "divinely inspired" than any other Christian thinker, read
Lewis, Chesterton, Ellul, etc, and this obviously worried my father a great deal.

He and I would begin to get in this cyclical arguments that went no where. When I would cut off the
argument and say something like, "This is getting us no where. We are speaking about different things, and I
don't think you are really getting what I am trying to say," then he would get mad that I was backing out of
the argument because I was beaten. This would make me mad, and then my mother would start thinking
that we hated our parents. She would cry and ask, "Why are you SO cynical?" This made the many long car
rides VERY uncomfortable. Especially since my dad's idea of an apology is a statement of the obvious,
"There's a cow. Hm...aluminum fabrication. That would be an interesting job."

Any tips would be welcome.

This holds true for anyone out there reading this. Advice is needed.

On one hand, I could just keep my mouth shut and smile and nod and then go do my own thing, but that just seems dishonest in so many ways.

In the coming days, I am going to finish my diatribe on David Horowitz and also talk about some of the movies that I have seen recently. Now that I am out of class, I can talk about a broader range of issues.

David Horowitz' Point of View...

In an effort to not be labeled as a complete Stalinist, I would like to present a discussion of what I think are some of the valid critiques that Horowitz and his promoters sponsor.

1. Academics are predominantly liberal: Yes, they are. Most of the professors that I have had, excepting some of those at my Christian undergraduate college, have been solidly Democrats.

2. Some of these liberal academics make it their personal mission to foist their opinions and views on others: Almost everyone who has attended college has had at least one professor who has spent at least part of the beginning of nearly every class ranting on how those **** Christians and their Bush are dragging everything into a collective cess pool where they will hope to rule with ruthless and totalitarian fists.

In addition to opening class rants, I have personally endured attacks on myself as an individual where I was told any or all of these things:

• No sane person would ever believe in a Christian God.
• Christianity leads directly to fascism.
• There is no room for being both Christian and progressive.
• There is no such thing as Christian feminism.
• When, in philosophy, we discuss the existence of God, we actually are talking about how historically God has been used as a support for evil things, thus we have grown beyond such childish fairytales. Therefore, the purpose of talking about ontotheology is to disprove God's existence.
• All Christians believe X,Y, and Z.
• You have no business talking about religion informing philosophy or ethics because religion always leads to a will to knowledge.
• "You kinds of students who think you can be a thinking Christian make me want to quit teaching. You are parasites on those of us who want to give you 'real' knowledge."

Needless to say that all of these not only are personally offensive, but they also show the complete lack of willingness on the part of many academics to discuss issues of faith, values, or ethics unless it is completely on their terms. You are, after all, either with us or against us.

3. Many times this sort of abuse goes unchecked and threatens a students quality of life and ability to function within the college or university system: also true. I am a big burly intelligent white male who most people would assume brimmed with advantage and self-confidence, but I have been reduced to tears many days after a particularly difficult day of classes.

Sure alcohol and nicotine can help at times, but I hardly think students should be reduced to self-medication to get through college.

Furthermore, with the appeals process at most university being nothing but a vestigial nod to students' rights, if a situation occurs where a student's grade is in question, there are few, if any, roads of accountability. At my current institution, even if a student proves that discrimination occurred and that it affected their grade, no one can force the professor to change their grade.

Something needs to be done. Some of my colleagues disagree with me, but I think that Horowitz and his supporters are not on a completely arbitrary witch-hunt. If there were not professors abusing their position as teachers in order to become evangelists, then students would not rally to his cause as readily.

Too often, I hear professors in the lounge gleefully talking about how they can't wait to fail a student who dared write a paper on why they think abortion is wrong or why their faith is important to them. Rather than carefully challenge all students to learn to critically engage with what they think and where that came from, they want their students to reject all of their past and learn to spout a new rhetoric without thought.

In the next few days, I promise, I will be posting on the types of audacious claims that make it impossible for me to ever join with Horowitz. Surprise, surprise, many of them are the same.

Until then, "May all of your sorrows be patched and your joys be quilted."

David Horowitz Hates Me...

Or at least hates my campus. Now, I know that it has been a while since I posted, but I have been super busy with the end of the semester approaching. Still, when I posted on March 30th on the upcoming presentation by David Horowitz, I could never have imagined the debacle that would result.

I must give some background in order to explain my discussion which will follow. When Mr. Horowitz came to speak, I assumed that significant opposition would result, especially from the highly political members of my department, but I have to admit that I was surprised by the vehemence of their expression of disagreement.

It all began with a vocal rally outside of the doors to the hall where he was going to speak. Members of campus liberal groups gathered and shouted at those who entered to hear the lecture. The abuse continued inside of the lecture as opposition forces booed, hissed, and generally heckled throughout Mr. Horowitz's "lecture."

Following the repeated breakdown of order and a disorganized question and answer period, Mr. Horowitz stated that BGSU was the worst place at which he had ever spoken, and I eagerly awaited his comments on his blog.

Well here they are: (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17594).

In his article, "Bowling Green Barbarians," Horowitz cites BGSU as the prime example of everything that is wrong with American higher education: "there seem to be no adults around to mind the playground."

In my next post, I will directly respond not only to Mr. Horowitz's accusations but also to the behavior of my opposition minded colleagues.