tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147037872024-03-13T07:03:26.953-04:00Christian Ethics, PhDLike a roller coaster ride. Only wilder.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-22033611166673100782014-01-08T11:12:00.003-05:002014-01-08T11:12:32.637-05:00What the Best College Teachers Read?I wanted to like Ken Bain's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674013255/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0674013255&linkCode=as2&tag=homesthedocto-20" target="_blank"><i>What the Best College Teachers Do</i></a>.<br />
<br />
But I got tripped up by the circular logic evident in the first few chapters, and I never quite untripped myself.<br />
<br />
To say that there were methodological flaws in the study would be unjust--I didn't really glean enough information about the details of the study from the book. Bain spoke in generalities, broad brush-strokes throughout. It seems possible, though, that the selection critera pre-determined the findings of the study. From the first few chapters, I got the sneaking suspicion that they selected professors that used language about learning that they liked, and then discovered that those professors . . . used language about learning they liked.<br />
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That suspicion tainted, somewhat, the rest of my reading. <br />
<br />
But somewhere in the middle of it, I stopped thinking of it as a study of college-level pedagogy, and started thinking of it as an apologia for liberal arts education. In the end, it was a collection of (modestly) inspiring ideas about education as something more than degree-granting and -getting, more than job training and income boosting, more than gate-keeping and hoop-jumping.<br />
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It was, in short, a reminder that education is about forming adults, a project that is only partially complete if we content ourselves with transmitting knowledge (even important knowledge). That's why I got into teaching--to change lives, not to administer entrance and exit exams.<br />
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One of the things I found myself doing as I read was jotting down and sorting through pedagogical ideas that I had already come up with but hadn't yet put to paper, or hadn't yet figured out how to build into course design. There weren't too terribly many good, specific tactics or tools described in the book itself (again, too many generalities and big-picture thinking), but I did feel encouraged in some observations I've made over the last few years. Often, that encouragement came in spite of what Bain was actually encouraging rather than as a result of it.<br />
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For example, in the midst of my annoyance at his encomiums to activities I've always found somewhat trendy or childish ("think-pair-square-share" and "the McEvoy minute") and often unsuccessful, I began to realize that he had put words to a genuine problem I'd been noticing in my classes: passive learning early in a course or a class period becomes habitual. It has been my practice to try to give students something to discuss, and then ask them to discuss it. I build this pattern into individual class periods and into course structures as a whole. My starting point has always been that my students <i>really don't</i> know anything, and most of them don't care that they don't know anything. And so I have to introduce thoughts for them to think so that they can start learning how to think. <br />
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But they've been conditioned by a lifetime (to them) of passivity and edutainment, and they don't know how to contribute to their own education. This is not how I approached my theological studies. I would have four days of brilliant lecture classes, and by Friday, when all the TAs held discussion groups, I was <i>bursting</i> with things to talk about. This is not how my undergrads experience their own education. I've been starting to realize that I have to get them talking early, if I ever want them to talk at all. Early in the course, early in the class period, early in our relationship, early in any office visit--they have to get used to talking so that they can do it.<br />
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I'm not sure Bain's book really gave me workable strategies to do that, but he has strengthened my resolve to look for ways that will work for me. <br />
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Or with regard to motivation, I found his language about "giving students a choice" and "refusing to exercise control over the students' learning" disingenuous. He made the observation that grades represent both feedback to the student and "objective" evaluation to society-at-large (those who want to know whether or not the nursing student learned anatomy, for example), but then followed it with the idea that the latter should be all but dropped. That seems problematic at best, <i>at the college level</i>. (I wish I could absolutely <i>require </i>such an approach at the elementary school level, and I think secondary schools could certainly move more in that direction.)<br />
<br />
Still, I found myself brainstorming ways to build some kind of choice or ownership over the material, particularly in upper-level courses. Might ethics students choose a "focal" issue to return to over and over during the course of the semester? Could some of the readings in a Bible class be selected by students?<br />
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Finally, his language of "authenticity" profoundly annoyed me. By this he meant that coursework should look like "real life," that projects should be constructed along "real world" lines wherever possible, and that connections with how the student might <i>use</i> the course's skills and content in "the real world" should be prevalent. I found myself kicking against all but the last point. <br />
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I kept mentally returning to sports and music metaphors: there's nothing "authentic" about scales and practice drills. Scales and etudes and fingering drills and breathing drills are not musical. But musicianship absolutely requires them. Fartleks and shark-fin drills and suicide drills look nothing like race-day running or swimming or like a basketball game. But you won't be successful during the match/meet/game unless you've done the artificial drills. The drills produce transferable skills.<br />
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But it's true that students sometimes need help with the transfer process. So musicians have student recitals before they have performances at the Met. And the varsity basketball team plays scrimmages against the JV team before their matches, and high school basketball (still, so far) comes before a career in the NBA.<br />
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It's been fairly easy for me to make connections between my area of study and "the real world," and I do drop these connections into my everyday contact with students. <br />
"Hey, some day, the town you're living in is going to pass some idiot regulation, and you're going to want to be able to make a persuasive speech to the town council why it's unjust or imprudent." <br />
"Hey, some day, some issue that's important to you will hit the newspapers (if we still have such things), and you're going to want your voice to be heard, and you're going to want to be able to write a letter to the editor (or a HuffPo blog post) that gets accepted and that makes people think."<br />
"Hey, some day, one of your friends is going to ask you to drive him to a bank, and he's going to come running out, waving a gun and shouting 'DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE!!!!' and you're going to want to have some practice at saying no, so that's why you should <i>never say yes when your friend asks to copy your homework</i>."<br />
<br />
But I haven't done much work at building those connections into my assignments. I've been all scales and etudes and no recitals. Instead of telling them that they should master this or that material or technique so that some day they could write a good letter to the editor, why don't I assign a letter to the editor?<br />
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So, I was inspired and encouraged by this book, even when I found myself disagreeing with it or annoyed by its trendy, jargony tone. It fed my own brainstorming about pedagogy, even when its few specific suggestions were unpalatable or inapplicable to me.<br />
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I do recommend it, even if I didn't really love it. Because I <i>do</i> really love teaching, and a conversation with someone who feels the same is always worthwhile.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-68347168363797223132014-01-04T21:41:00.000-05:002014-01-04T21:41:26.958-05:00Tar and Feather with the Same Black KettleWhatever mixaphors you want to come up with, it seems worth describing this article as, at the very least, problematic:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2013/10/male_professors_female_students_a_tricky_power_dynamic.html" target="_blank">Male Humanities Professors Are Only In It For The Adulation</a><br />
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I should admit, I appreciate hearing some of the stories about professors', administrators', or colleagues' misdeeds. Because, quite frankly, of all the Forewarned-Forearmed scenarios I've contemplated, having a colleague "accidentally" play porn at me just hadn't made the list.<br />
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And now I know.<br />
<br />
Now I have an exit strategy for just that scenario.<br />
<br />
But the rest of the article didn't seem terribly helpful to me. Aside from the ludicrously attention-seeking over-reach in the article's
title (which I'm willing to set aside only for the sake of all my
journalist friends who insist that the writer never chooses the title), the conclusions don't seem warranted from the evidence, and the whole thing seems an exercise in scorn.<br />
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Overrepresenting the number of assholes in academia really doesn't do anyone any good.<br />
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Generalizing the behavior of idiots to all members of a group to which some idiots belong doesn't do anyone any good.<br />
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Suspecting the motives of people who have chosen a rather modest career path--one oriented towards helping others--doesn't do anyone any good.<br />
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I got into teaching in general, and teaching theology in particular, to do people some good.<br />
<br />
I'm willing to believe that men, in general, are biologically programmed to put themselves a bit more on display when potential mates walk in the room. I'm willing to believe that happily married (or securely celibate) men, in general, are not entirely free of this biological imperative and may quite unconsciously "display" a little more when a pretty girl shows an interest.<br />
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But "getting attention from pretty co-eds" really doesn't make the list of reasons to choose academia. You could be a bartender to do that, and you'd probably make more money. Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-88256883859128258342013-12-10T12:49:00.001-05:002013-12-10T12:50:06.078-05:00Watch Those Church Newsletters, GuysThough I am tempted, I will comment no further on this case, as this writer for Christianity Today has done such a thorough job:<br />
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<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2013/december/parsing-mark-driscoll-plagiarism-janet-mefferd-apologizes.html" target="_blank">Mark Driscoll plagiarism case</a><br />
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Okay, a brief word, perhaps.<br />
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This is yet another instance of how the anti-intellectual strand that pervades evangelicalism can hurt the very evangelical witness they want to give.<br />
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Evangelism should, first and foremost, be truth-telling. Once again, academic standards of citation are not, principally, about protecting ownership of original material (that's copyright). They are about truth-telling: acknowledging when our thinking has been helped by someone else's, acknowledging when we find someone else's way of expressing our thoughts to be more helpful than whatever we could formulate, tipping our hat to our intellectual and spiritual parents.<br />
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It's really not that hard to drop a footnote and say, "Hey, isn't it cool how so-and-so said this?"<br />
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But an evangelicalism that mocks and derides academia cannot learn from it even those forms of truth-telling that can only help its witness to the truth.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-2106049676090492282013-11-08T12:28:00.000-05:002013-11-09T14:02:19.022-05:00Why You Should Care, or Project Plagiarism MattersI keep forgetting to show my students stories of why and how academic citation matters "in the real world."<br />
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I'm going to start collecting them here, so that I have somewhere easy to point to.<br />
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I've spoken before about why I think plagiarism--or, rather, the habits of academic honesty that plagiarism violates--is <a href="http://scsours.blogspot.com/2010/08/opinionation.html" target="_blank">a big moral deal</a>.<br />
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It certainly is a big deal in academia, and the big deal that it is can properly be called a moral deal because the procedural standards are oriented toward properly moral goals--honesty, diligence, courtesy, etc.<br />
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Whether it is a big deal, moral or otherwise, outside the academy is worth pondering. I don't believe that my students believe my insistence on proper attribution does them any good outside of the classroom or has any goal not restricted to the "academic" part of academic integrity.<br />
<br />
I came across several examples this week that might be useful for Project Plagiarism Matters. Just one will have to suffice for this post, however.<br />
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I wouldn't have noticed this one but for my colleague at Huntingdon, <a href="http://fs.huntingdon.edu/jlewis/" target="_blank">Dr. Jeremy Lewis</a>, who reminded me that students are protected, as well as imperiled, by proper citation.<br />
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<a href="http://jezebel.com/a-college-freshman-turned-in-my-blog-post-as-his-homewo-1460113631" target="_blank">When College Students Plagiarize You, You Must Have Said Something Worth Saying</a><br />
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Yes, it's the college student who got in trouble here, but the person whom he plagiarized is a writer, who has a stake in having her work acknowledged. She also has a stake in having her work benefit herself, rather than some privileged white dude. ("Lord, prosper the work of our hands!")<br />
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It seems worth reminding students that they might some day write for a living--incidentally to whatever employment they find or as a substantial part of their careers. They learn proper citation now as part of a <i>system</i> of proper attribution that protects writers from having their work stolen for others' benefit.<br />
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This system is especially important for those of us in the essentially charitable enterprise of education. We accept a modest salary in exchange for bettering the lives of others by passing along ideas that we have learned from others. There are only a few concrete ways we can augment that modest salary, and almost all of them have to do with generating ideas worth sharing and publishing them in income-producing ways.<br />
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But even for those of us outside academia, the protection of our intellectual and artistic work--enacted legally by copyright protection, but morally by accusations of plagiarism--still matters. My students might not go on to be researchers or authors, but they might go on to be bloggers. Many of them are already users of content-sharing social media--instagram and such. They might go on to be technical writers of some kind. They might be speech writers or website designers or nurse-educators or anybody else who would create something with words.<br />
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They might like to know that some fussy old fuddy-duddy of a professor like me is training those who come after them not to plagiarize <i>them</i>.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-8548967705414510862013-10-06T15:31:00.001-04:002013-10-06T15:31:45.217-04:00Hauerwas, A PrimerI took this photo several years ago, and I couldn't tell you the name or the location of the church for love or money.<br />
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But it really doesn't matter. Because it could be any church in the US, and it faithfully reproduces the mindset of almost any church in the US.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1NAExSlmlwk/UlF9otQt3TI/AAAAAAAAACk/WoPpoSfJwZs/s1600/AmericanChurch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="366" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1NAExSlmlwk/UlF9otQt3TI/AAAAAAAAACk/WoPpoSfJwZs/s640/AmericanChurch.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The American church, in virtually all its iterations, assumes the fundamental compatibility of American imperial might and the church's evangelical mission.<br />
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If it is a conservative or evangelical church, it will happily pair these two activities on a Prayer Bulletin Board, and will unironically plaster the background with American flags--on both sides of the board.<br />
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If it is a progressive or liberal church, it will conscientiously refuse to recognize either of these two activities as worthy of the church's attention, thereby confirming the indissoluble bond between the two.<br />
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It is incomprehensible to either kind of church that the Church is called to witness to a gospel that differentiates between belief and unbelief <i>and</i> that places coercive violence on the side of unbelief. "Pick one," the American church whispers, "and keep busy condemning those who've picked the other."<br />
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I stick with the United Methodist Church year after year, disappointment after disappointment, General Conference after General Conference, because I keep hoping that our theological DNA will start expressing itself; that our parents in the faith, John and Charles and Susanna and Phoebe, who refused to bifurcate evangelical witness and social justice, will somehow speak again in the lives of their children. I keep hoping that Methodists will become disenchanted with respectability and politicking and will once again be methodical--ploddingly, embarrassingly, pragmatically methodical--in their pursuit of personal and social holiness.<br />
Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-86163757325683525452013-06-23T22:03:00.002-04:002013-06-23T22:03:17.804-04:00Announcements, Updates, and Current EventsI have neglected to make a few important announcements in this space.<br />
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First, for the past two years I have been serving as a Licensed Local Pastor at a church in Pennsylvania. This has changed my status with the UMC from "Certified Candidate" to "Licensed Local Pastor (Seminary Completed)." Although I have just left parish ministry (on which more below), I have been glad to have been a part of a local church in this capacity.<br />
<br />
I finished the PhD this past April, and graduated May 13th. My dissertation, "Mapping Suffering: Pain, Illness, and Happiness in the Christian Tradition," is currently available on ProQuest.<br />
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I have also accepted a position as Instructor of Religion at Huntingdon College, in Montgomery, Alabama. I will begin this fall.<br />
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My bishop has approved this as an Extension Ministry, so my status with the UMC will remain the same: Licensed Local Pastor (Seminary Completed) appointed to Extension Ministry.<br />
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This is an exciting new chapter in my life! Stay tuned . . . <br />
Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-27583720190413609122011-06-16T17:47:00.008-04:002011-06-17T11:29:07.749-04:00Common Sense Methodists?!?!<span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Convinced as I have been--and, it must be admitted, remain--that the Methodist church's adoption of sacramental grape juice in place of wine was a grievous error, thanks to Jennifer Woodruff Tait's fine new book, </span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.blogger.com/%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0817317198/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=homesthedocto-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=0817317198%22">The Poisoned Chalice</a></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >, I promise never again to consider it a nonsensical or untheological one.</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >This is a good history of the movement that resulted in the substitution of grape juice for wine in the churches that were to become The United Methodist Church, giving due credit to people whom it is easier to caricaturize, especially for those of us that disagree with them. Woodruff Tait debunks the myth (common among us sacramental oenophiles) that the movement was driven largely by relatively shallow social and cultural concerns rather than substantive moral, theological, or symbological ones.</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >That is not to say that the moral and mystagogical theology expressed by the grape juice devotees is persuasive or impressive in any way. But Woodruff Tait manages the historian's delicate job of portraying the occasionally ridiculous comprehensibly, at times sympathetically, and without overt mockery. (One sometimes catches a playful smile barely hidden behind the hand, but it is never a smirk.)</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >More importantly, Woodruff Tait isolates and draws out the many interwoven threads that manifested themselves in the movement towards sacramental grape juice--the interaction between theology and science, rationality and sobriety, hygiene and social utility. The confluence of concerns is rich and sometimes surprising, and Woodruff Tait's deft handling of the material makes it somewhat less incomprehensible than it might otherwise be.<br /><br />She relates this cultural constructs accessibly and engagingly, and the book would be easily and profitably read by anyone interested in any one of the many concerns it engages.</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >If one had to name a complaint (and one has to, in order to have one's reviews taken seriously), it might be that there seem a relatively few primary texts being worked with here. Each chapter covers a different facet of the same few texts, intelligibly and persuasively, but one occasionally wonders whether a broader selection of writings from the period would tell the same story. (Surely if one broadened the sample a bit, one would find those nonsensical and untheological voices arguing from sheer stupidity--Fred Phelps is but the most modern incarnation of an old phenomenon.) Still, a scholar does have to work within limits in order to learn or to say anything meaningful, and this hardly seems a complaint worth making.</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >As I read, I could not help but think of companion readings (not to supply the book's deficits, but because good reading always invites company). Those who are primarily interested in the history of the period should read this alongside Christine Rosen's </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Preaching Eugenics </span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >(especially if the author's references to the eugenic concerns of theologians and pastors seem too fantastical). Intellectual historians might profitably follow this with Amy Laura Hall's </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Conceiving Parenthood</span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >, for the sequel to American Protestantism's love affair with scientific hygiene and purity.</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Theologians and ethicists might read this with Thomas, with whom a comparison is never unprofitable (indeed--those familiar with the <span style="font-style: italic;">Summa</span> might have recognized </span> <style>@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >the concern for the effects of alcohol on reason as one of Thomas’s concerns and, perhaps, chuckled at the picture of rabidly Protestant ministers unknowingly propagating Thomistic moral theology) or, for contemporary issues with perhaps a similar constellation of concerns (scientific orthodoxy, social justice and the common good, purity, the effects of technological innovation), Rayna Rapp’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Testing Women, Testing the Fetus</span> or Maura Ryan’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Ethics and Economics of Assisted Reproduction</span>.<br /></span>Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-46224656370201685792011-06-15T14:54:00.002-04:002011-06-15T15:12:02.609-04:00Integrity + Equality = ???Lovely thoughts from a wise friend on how gender equality may have changed the way one intentionally cultivates marital fidelity:<br /><br /><a href="http://featherlessbiped.blogspot.com/2011/06/long-shadow-of-modesto.html">In the Shadow of Modesto</a><br /><br />It's true that the standard "adultery prevention" tips, as laudable as their intentions are, do cast women in a single role--that of tempter. As the frequency and type of co-ed interactions increases, it is certainly true that the temptation to infidelity would increase, just as the possibility of more predatory interactions would increase. (A sad truth for women--the more doors that open for them, the greater the chance that a wolf is lurking behind one of them.)<br /><br />But women are more than tempters. They are colleagues, friends, bosses, shipmates, advisers, counselors, superiors, and dependents. Christian men who are sincere about cultivating the virtues of marital fidelity--both in their own lives and in broader society--need to figure out how to do this in the context of an exploding web of co-ed interactions that can no longer be simply avoided.<br /><br />I might also add the conversation over how <span style="font-style: italic;">women</span> might cultivate those same virtues--personal sexual morality and respect for marital integrity in the broader society--is a complicated one indeed. Adding in the dynamic of the all-too-prevalent incidence of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment only increases the complexity of the conversation. I'm not sure I'm up for it.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-91996093275601884582011-05-12T09:37:00.000-04:002011-05-13T16:29:53.398-04:00The Living Christ in MemphisSurprising and lovely story this morning on NPR (yes, NPR):<br /><br /><a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/05/12/136230496/memphis-churches-lead-in-helping-flood-victims">Memphis Churches Leading The Way in Disaster Relief</a><br />(Red Cross cautiously pleased. "It's not necessarily a bad thing.")<br /><br />Aside from my amusement at the Red Cross spokeswoman's clear unfamiliarity with the legitimacy and efficacy of interfaith cooperative efforts, this story prompted two thoughts.<br /><br />First, thank you, Memphis churches for offering a clear witness to the gospel. Thank you for being the Body of Christ right there in your hometown.<br /><br />Second, I've been receiving some criticism from my evangelical friends--or rather, from my evangelical friends who tend conservative on political matters--about my public statements to the effect that, if the church does not feed the hungry, heal the sick, and bring relief to the poor, I'm happy for the U. S. government to pick up the slack.<br /><br />I want to state clearly and unambiguously that the day news stories like the above are no longer news--the day NPR says, "Churches are solving the poverty problem? So what? That's not news," the day Red Cross has no choice but to say, "Well, of <span style="font-style: italic;">course</span> churches are providing the bulk of the shelter/food/clothing here. They always do"--is the day I start campaigning vigorously for an end to all government aid to the needy.<br /><br />Any and every tax cut you ask me to vote for, I will.<br /><br />Any and every government program you want to cut, I will be your fiercest lobbyist.<br /><br />Seriously.<br /><br />Go ahead. Get busy.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-33601422689406012792011-05-02T08:17:00.003-04:002011-05-02T09:21:27.212-04:00Instantly ErroneousI've been perusing the usual news sites last night and this morning, along with news sites I don't normally visit, thanks to the furious barrage of links and comments and speculation on my friends' facebook pages.<br /><br />I've discovered that Fox News was reporting that Usama bin Landen [sic] was confrimed [sic] dead. Half an hour later, someone thought to become a professional and the two misspellings were corrected.<br /><br />I've seen several websites (including wikipedia) announce confidently that Osama has been dead for a week; most of those sites now report that he was killed on May 1, 2011.<br /><br />Some sites are currently reporting that Osama has been buried at sea, citing Islamic tradition and a general disinclination among the world's leaders to pollute their soil with his remains. Other sites are reporting that the US is maintaining its custody of his body in order to ensure acceptance of its claim to have killed him. I'm sure when an official statement is made as to the disposition of Osama's body, everyone will revise his website accordingly.<br /><br />Some of my friends, especially those disinclined to trust anything with a liberal provenance, are already generating conspiracy theories to account for the discrepancies between Obama's official announcement and the maelstrom of unsubstantiated "facts" that overtook cybernews outlets while we were all waiting for that announcement.<br /><br />Peace, be still, my friends.<br /><br />There is no need for such speculation.<br /><br />The explanation is far simpler and far more troubling.<br /><br />The intentional impermanence of cyberspace combined with the demand for incessantly instantaneous news has created an ethos of irresponsibility in online reporting. Getting it out trumps getting it right.<br /><br />In print media, the error abides; it gazes up at one, accusingly, preserved in library archives (what is the new microfiche?) for posterity. The penance only perpetuates the failure: the necessary published retraction ensures that there are two artifacts instead of one. The damage to the reporter's and the paper's reputation was tangible.<br /><br />There is no failure in online reporting. There is no retraction, no mea culpa. There is only perpetual revision. Reputation need not matter.<br /><br />And, of course, affiliation counts for more than accuracy these days anyway, doesn't it? One's political leanings (whether implied or avowed) are far more important for developing a loyal readership than one's accumulated record.<br /><br />And if there is no more accumulated record? So much the better.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-23645521394411091892011-04-20T16:02:00.002-04:002011-04-20T16:02:59.654-04:00DNEChildish ≠ child-like.<br /><br />Discuss.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-28431127757263925242011-04-14T14:25:00.002-04:002011-04-14T14:34:45.318-04:00Is It Schadenfreude If They Deserved It?I never take joy in the suffering of others, even when that suffering is deserved.<br /><br />But . . . sometimes . . . I allow myself a hearty nod of approval when someone is given the gift of logical consequences:<br /><br /><a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/a-one-man-term-paper-mill-comes-to-grief-in-massachusetts/32086">Paper Mill Ghostwriter Loses His Law License</a>Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-40488052825798391792011-03-30T16:19:00.004-04:002011-03-30T18:09:48.247-04:00Stop Knocking the Old FolksWhen my husband and I returned to Duke for our PhD work, we found ourselves free to choose a church for the first time since . . . well, for the first time, honestly.<br /><br />When we were MDivs at Duke, we attended churches where one or the other of us was assigned as a student intern, or we attended the church of a fellow seminarian whose ministry we wanted to support.<br /><br />When neither condition applied and we were free (or was it obligated?) to choose, we warily and dutifully did the rounds of all the United Methodist churches in Durham.<br /><br />We were open to a fairly wide range of styles of doing and being church--contemporary or traditional or "blended," program-driven or people-oriented, faithfully struggling or humbly succeeding: it was all, at least potentially, good.<br /><br />The only churches we rejected out of hand and without a second glance were churches where someone came up to us after the service, grabbed us by the shoulders, and staring into our eyes gushed, "We <span style="font-style: italic;">need</span> people like you in this church."<br /><br />By "people like you," they meant, of course, young people. (And, in my husband's case, young, <span style="font-style: italic;">attractive</span> people.)<br /><br />These churches had bought the line that youthfulness was a sign of spiritual value, a more wrongheaded notion than which I've rarely encountered. Our presence <span style="font-style: italic;">qua</span> young people--quite apart from our spiritual maturity, our faithfulness, our integrity, our willingness to tithe--was judged to be an asset to the church.<br /><br />Honestly, after teaching young people for the better part of two years, I have to question this notion.<br /><br />There's nothing wrong, of course, with attending to the spiritual needs of young people. Churches with enjoyable youth activities, accessible teaching for younger folk, and a commitment to integrating adults-in-training into the work of the church are certainly doing right by their kids. (The church in which I was raised deliberately made space for older teens and college kids on their various committees, and I briefly served on the worship committee there.)<br /><br />But churches that wish to fill their pews with young folk because they believe a church full of young folk is <span style="font-style: italic;">necessarily and certainly</span> a healthier congregation than one full of older folk are just plain wrong.<br /><br />I have taught classes of between eight and twenty-five students, spoken at our college's chapel, and mentored both individual students and student groups.<br /><br />And I should say, lest what follows be read as the uncharitable rantings of someone who hates working with undergrads, that I <span style="font-style: italic;">love</span> my kids--from the grumpy, reading-averse footballers to the academic all-stars, from the kids for whom that C+ is a hard-won accomplishment to the ones that email me to ask for more reading, and even, especially, the plagiarizers, for whom I always hope good will come from the confrontation.<br /><br />But their youth is not an asset in and of itself. It is, in fact, a challenge, even a <span style="font-style: italic;">need</span>, that must be addressed.<br /><br />They cannot be taught without being entertained.<br /><br />Their fragile egos require exceptionally delicate handling.<br /><br />Some of them--particularly the well-educated ones--are desperately ill-acquainted with work, especially physical labor.<br /><br />Most importantly, they are thoroughly trapped by superficial expectations of worth--they will listen only to hip, attractive, controversial, or charismatic folk, and will utterly dismiss the wisdom of the frumpy, the awkward, the weak, and the weathered. They are not completely lacking in respect, but they have horrendously distorted notions of who is worthy of respect, whom they should trust, whose lives are worth imitating. Counter-intuitively, they are frightened by genuine novelty. If it doesn't come dressed in the costume they have been conditioned to prefer, it is not to be borne.<br /><br />A church full of young people may look like a church teeming with life and vitality. But it is also a church teeming with neediness, immaturity, and folly. (Perhaps a daring folly and a receptive immaturity, but perhaps not.)<br /><br />I just gave the homily for the mid-week Lenten service at our church. Our church membership is delightfully varied in many ways--a great range of ages, educational levels, maturity, and spiritual gifts. But this particular service (lunchtime, very liturgical, contemplative) seems to have connected with more older folk than younger folk. (Perhaps more teenagers would come, if it weren't during school hours, but perhaps not.)<br /><br />As I was preaching, I felt keenly the difference between speaking to young folk and speaking to people with some years on them.<br /><br />I spoke very simply, without being especially vivid or entertaining. And yet most of the faces I saw were attentive, open, engaged, thoughtful.<br /><br />Every single person over the age of seventy had a kind word to say to me afterwords--not because I had done anything particularly well, but because they knew the importance of kind words.<br /><br />And everyone over the age of forty that knew me already made sure to say hello to me--not because I was cool or famous or in any way wonderful, but because they respected our acquaintance and knew how to maintain it.<br /><br />There were, of course, younger folk there, too, and their presence was a blessing. But their presence was a blessing quite apart from their youth--they happened to be particularly awesome young folk. Their youth added nothing to the worship service; it was, instead, their maturity <span style="font-style: italic;">in spite of their youth</span> that made their presence a pleasure.<br /><br />To put it bluntly, it's the little old ladies that keep the church standing--both literally and metaphorically.<br /><br />Older members of the congregation know how to build community. They are not afraid of work, even if their bodies don't always cooperate. They take financial matters seriously. And they are more open to change than young folks. (No, I'm serious. Youth is attracted to frivolous novelty--change for change's sake. Considered, purposeful, thoughtful, and potentially permanent change is difficult for them. But you convince a seventy-year-old of the reasonableness and worth of a particular change? Watch out.)<br /><br />If there are no gray heads in your congregation, you have a serious problem.<br /><br />If you have a congregation full of gray heads, do not despise them. There is life and wisdom and growth there.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-88052202910262001002011-03-24T15:42:00.004-04:002011-03-24T15:59:31.930-04:00Biblical Preaching Can Get You KilledDespite manifold witnesses to the contrary, just war theorists--that is, people who believe that war can be justifiable, whether by the classic Just War Theory criteria or otherwise--continually insist that pacifism--that is, the refusal to kill even in defense of justice--is an abdication from political responsibility.<br /><br />Consider this excerpt from the penultimate sermon preached by <a href="http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/social-justice/2009/02/oscar-romero-bishop-poor">Archbishop Oscar Romero</a>:<br /><h6>Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says ‘Thou shalt not kill’. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.</h6>Does his call to lay down arms sound like an abdication from politics to you?<br /><br />No, it didn't sound like it to the ones who depended on those arms to perpetuate their political power, either.<br /><br />That's why they killed him. The very next day.<br /><br />Consider joining with the Salvadoran poor in <a href="http://www.io.com/%7Ekellywp/LesserFF/Mar/Romero.html">commemorating</a> the life of Oscar Romero.<br /><br />And if you're a church in search of a pastor, consider exactly what you mean by "biblical preaching."Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-84407553604124070612011-03-05T17:27:00.002-05:002011-03-05T17:28:20.920-05:00DNERestraint ≠ repression.<br /><br />Discuss.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-12294986467464735922011-03-03T13:09:00.003-05:002011-03-03T13:26:14.990-05:00Female = Feminist?A friend of mine currently blogging over at <a href="http://theologyphdmom.blogspot.com/">Theology PhD Mom</a> is in the midst of an interesting and helpful series of posts on the academic job market.<br /><br />She raises a very interesting point in <a href="http://theologyphdmom.blogspot.com/2011/03/academic-job-search-ii-networking.html">this post</a> about the not-entirely-realistic expectation that female theologians are conversant with feminist theology.<br /><br />I know the important names, the basic thrust of their work, and the kinds of concerns that may be common to those who label themselves feminists, but I have far less expertise in feminist theology than I do in, say, philosophical ethics, scripture, systematics, Thomism, or Wesleyan theology.<br /><br />Of course, in some sense, I <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span> feminist theology, whether or not I do it in concert with explicitly feminist theologians, simply by dint of being a woman. In a more significant sense, I do feminist theology because some of the issues, approaches, and convictions that tend to be of particular concern to women are part of my intellectual landscape. (That is, I am more likely than my male colleagues, on the whole, to notice, theorize, or write about some of the sorts topics that feminists tend to notice, theorize, and write about.)<br /><br />But I have never identified myself as a feminist theologian.<br /><br />Despite never having identified myself as a feminist, or even admitted to being conversant in feminist theology, I have been asked by colleagues to "present the feminist perspective," to give a lecture on feminist theology, or in other ways to speak for or about feminists in academic settings.<br /><br />I have finally stopped graciously apologizing for my lack of knowledge and interest. The last time a (male) colleague asked me to give a presentation on feminism, I answered, "Hey, you know what would be awesome? Let's do something really wild. Why don't you present on feminism, and I'll present on masculinity."<br /><br />He didn't take me up on it.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-28480619067197009662011-01-20T14:53:00.003-05:002011-01-20T17:35:53.369-05:00Sentences You Should FearI have become quite an expert at catching instances of academic dishonesty.<br /><br />In fact, I've caught more plagiarists without the help of my school's detection program (SafeAssign, Turnitin, etc.) than with.<br /><br />I say this not to brag, but to preface the following list: those sentences I'm mostly likely to say right before I catch you. I put this list in order of ascending frequency.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />"Gee, that's not how the book put it."</span> When a student, even a good student, knows more about the topic than the author he's supposed to be summarizing, analyzing, or assessing, I tend to assume that student has done a little outside "research." So I start doing a little "research" of my own.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">"Gosh, this would have been a great paper for the <span style="font-style:italic;">other</span> class this student is taking/took last semester/would have taken as a freshman."</span> I do know what classes are being offered elsewhere in the school, you know. And sometimes, your other professors and I chat about, like, what we're teaching. Recycling paper is good and will lead to a cleaner and better future for all; recycling paper<span style="font-weight:bold;">s</span> can only lead to your downfall.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />"That's . . . not . . . what I assigned."</span> Sometimes, an essay that doesn't address the assignment but is in other ways a sound effort is just a bad essay. Other times, it's a bad deal--that purchased essay didn't exactly do it's job. And the funny thing? About two sentences into our conversation about your paper (and we <span style="font-style:italic;">will</span> have one), I can tell which of these it is.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">"This is a rather astounding improvement over the last paper."</span> This sentence almost never, in itself, provokes The Conversation. I've actually had students who work on their writing and improve it over the course of the semester. (No, really! Some people do that. Have you considered that as an alternative to . . . no? Well, it was worth a try.) But it almost always provokes a little one-on-one time with the search engine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">"Wow, this is a grammatically correct sentence."</span> You know who you are and why this makes me start googling. This corollary to the previous (both falling under the "There's no way <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> student produced <span style="font-style:italic;">this</span> paper" category heading) is distinguished primarily by the suspect sentence's isolation from its surroundings. That pearl of great price--grammar--shines all the brighter when it appears in the midst of the compost bin that is your usual writing. I always google the pearl. And I usually find that it has an original owner that is not you.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">"Darn that thesaurus function on Word."</span> This one is kind of fun, actually. When I reconstruct the sentence that would have existed before your thesaurus use rendered it nonsensical, I can figure out whether you're 1) a bad writer or 2) a bad writer <span style="font-style:italic;">and</span> a plagiarist. If the probable ur-sentence of the tortured sentence is itself confused and mangled, that's a sure sign that it actually originated with you. (I <span style="font-style:italic;">never</span> attempt to reconstruct the mental pattern that produced such a sentence. I prefer to live in a land of logic and reason.) If the reconstructed sentence is logical, grammatical, and germane to the essay, I go a-hunting.<br /><br />And, the final and most frequent precursor to your visit with the academic dean:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">"Oh, look! Wiki!"</span> Nowadays, I read the relevant Wiki page(s) right before I start grading. It just makes the whole process faster.<br /><br />Perhaps this list will make you reconsider your attempt to skirt the requirements of your course. Or perhaps it will simply make you a better plagiarizer. Either way, I will consider it a success. The former is better for your soul, which is, of course, more important than your intellect. But the latter is not lacking in a kind of scholarly merit--the skills of a successful (as opposed to lucky) plagiarist are genuinely intellectual skills that may serve you later in life.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-16082389148313453972011-01-15T17:41:00.003-05:002011-01-15T17:46:00.716-05:00A Good IntroductionThis entry is a review of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0867165995?ie=UTF8&tag=homesthedocto-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0867165995">Catholic and Christian: An Explanation of Commonly Misunderstood Catholic Beliefs</a>, by Alan Schreck<br /><br />Written with a frankly apologetic aim that is laudable for its consistency, honesty, and gentleness, this primer on Catholic belief and practice is readable, friendly, and well-organized. Schreck has an eye on Protestant critiques of Catholicism and answers those critiques in an ecumenical and conciliatory manner—sometimes correcting misapprehensions, sometimes explaining in language that might be appealing to Protestants, yet never apologizing for Catholic distinctives. He is careful, for example, to appeal to scripture to argue against sola scriptura and for the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in directing the Church.<br /><br />At times, this ecumenical spirit (as well as, no doubt, his attention to accessibility) leads him to make claims that are less than intellectually satisfying. When he insists in the section on prayer to the saints, for example, that “All Christian prayer . . . is directed to the Father through Jesus Christ, who is the ‘one mediator between God and man’ (1 Tm 2:5)” (158-159), one desperately longs for the “ultimately” that one knows should be in there. It is patently true that prayers and petitions are addressed to the saints and to Mary, and to say that “all prayer” is “directed to the Father” cannot satisfy the Protestant who knows that he objects to the practice nor the Catholic who makes petitions to her beloved patron saint. Similarly, the affirmation that Mary was saved from sin through no merit of her own, just like all humans must be, with the only exceptional part being that her salvation was wrought before her birth, will not cause Protestants to recoil any less from the declaration that Jesus was not the only human to have lived a sinless life.<br /><br />(The only time I was myself a bit . . . snarly . . . was when he denied the existence of Junia and trivialized "deaconesses" with the distance quotes.)<br /><br />But Schreck’s project is not to bring all Protestants to full communion with the Catholic Church—it is but to explain Roman Catholic belief and practice accurately and appealingly, and this he does very well.<br /><br />As an ethicist, I cannot fail to be disappointed in the absence of a chapter dealing with Catholic ethics. While the attentive reader can collect scattered references to the sources, aims, and logic of Catholic moral theology into a reasonable understanding of how it works, there are few references to specific teachings, principles, or emphases. It should not be difficult to construct such a chapter, and John Paul II’s ethical writings would be a crucial resource for this project, given his ability to balance authority and accessibility in his writing.<br /><br />This was a required text for the class I am teaching this semester (that is, <span style="font-style:italic;">I</span> was required to require it), but I am quite happy with it nonetheless. It is accessible and sound, and I would recommend it outside the classroom to anyone (Catholic or Protestant) who is not well-versed in the Catholic faith but wants to be.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-44849678500367253062010-10-08T10:28:00.005-04:002010-10-08T12:51:32.380-04:00Twitter, Thomas, and the Tipping PointI love when my dissertation topic makes news.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell">Twitter, Facebook, and social activism: newyorker.com</a><br /><br />"Um, Sarah? It doesn't mention you or your dissertation anywhere in that article."<br /><br />I know. Malcolm Gladwell probably has no idea that he's talking about my dissertation topic (or one of them) in the above piece, but he is.<br /><br />The above is a wonderful explanation of the difference made in social activism by the quality of social ties among participants. "Weak-tie" connections--that is, your acquaintances, casual friends, and those third cousins you only see every couple years at funerals and such--are great resources for the kind of social change that depends on large numbers of people doing very little. When all one is changing is fashion, one only needs large numbers of people to create a tipping point.<br /><br />The kind of social activism that requires genuine sacrifice, that depends on well-organized and well-trained members, that risks grave danger, that drives substantive, long-term change cannot make use of these "weak-tie" connections. The Civil Rights Movement, Gladwell says, could not have happened without "strong-tie" connections--genuine friendships, the kind that foster trust, mutual encouragement, and solidarity in the face of challenge. The kind of leverage required to "tip" centuries of injustice toward something different does not come from a mass of loosely connected people doing nothing more substantive than throwing their spare change at a problem.<br /><br />Twitter, Facebook, and other emerging social media cannot create the latter kind of ties, and only where such ties are maintained by many other means can they participate in the strengthening of them. (My parents love seeing pictures of their grandchildren on my personal blog, but if that was all they had of their grandchildren, it would be a severely attenuated relationship.)<br /><br />Gladwell probably doesn't know it, but he is thinking right along with Thomas Aquinas.<br /><br />For Thomas, there is a difference between the passions and the virtues. The passions are immediate, pre-rational responses to the world: the instinctive cringe when the hand encounters a hot object, the smiling warmth when a mother sees her beloved children after a day apart, the burning tension when a co-worker's insult is overheard. These passions can be misguided, of course (as when a new neighbor prompts the breathless energy that ought to be reserved for one's wife), but they can also be entirely wholesome and good (as when a stranger's distress prompts an easy gesture of assistance).<br /><br />Passions are entirely different than virtues, however. Virtues require reasoned intentionality--they are the deliberate and conscious analogues to well-ordered passions. The mother who smiles at her sleeping child is instinctively recognizing the goodness of her offspring; she loves him with all the ease and warmth that the passions inspire. The mother who speaks gently to her tantruming child, who changes the third set of vomit-stained sheets that night, who haunts the cold and impersonal principal's office until the bullying is addressed, who cooks her nine thousandth family meal with the same care she did her first, that mother is loving her child with something more morally significant. <br /><br />That kind of love is harder. It takes determination; it takes reflection; it takes character. In some cases, it requires intentionally resisting the passions. Only the mother who <span style="font-style:italic;">knows</span> what is good for her child can do it; only the mother who <span style="font-style:italic;">wants</span> to do good for her child will do it; only the mother who <span style="font-style:italic;">consistently chooses</span> to do the good for her child will find herself capable of doing it even when her instinctual responses are to scream, lash out, give up, or chase happiness elsewhere.<br /><br />That is the difference between the passions and the virtues: the one is easy, immediate, and instinctive; the other is difficult, sustained, and achieved only with deliberate, long-term intentionality.<br /><br />And friends--real friends, not the kind that "like" your status updates or "follow" your tweets--are a crucial part of the process of forming the virtues. Good friendships with good people struggling to form the same good virtues ease the journey. They commiserate, they correct with gentleness and persistence, they offer concrete assistance, and they gratefully receive one's own offers of assistance.<br /><br />Those are the kinds of friends you want with you when you're sitting out on your front porch every evening so that the drug dealers will stop coming around. Those are the kinds of friends you want with you when you file the police report against your corrupt employers. Those are the kinds of friends you want with you when you're trying to find just one more reason not to pick up that needle again. Those are the kinds of friendships you need more of.<br /><br />"Oh, Sarah, you are so right! I'm going to forward this to all my friends on Facebook!"<br /><br />Please don't.<br /><br />Well, okay--yes, do. I like watching my hit count go up.<br /><br />But then turn off your computer. Go.<br /><br />Go take your extra zucchini to your neighbors. Or call your mother. Or have coffee with your college roommate. Or make cookies for your children or your co-workers or your grandmother. Or make cookies <span style="font-style:italic;">with</span> your children or your co-workers or your grandmother.<br /><br />Go do stuff with real human beings. The cyber-beings you've been hanging out with lately won't hold your hand while you're facing down real trouble. Go find the ones that will.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-15961710563869946732010-09-23T13:36:00.004-04:002010-09-23T13:44:46.146-04:00OverheardAn actual in-class exchange:<br /><br />"These prophets are pictured as giving counsel, advice, or correction to the king. So, you have Nathan rebuking David over the affair with Uriah, Elijah pronouncing judgment on Ahab for . . . everything, and Huldah counseling Josiah when-- Anybody notice the prophetess in our reading for today? Huldah, the prophet<span style="font-style:italic;">ess</span>, one of the instigators of Josiah's reform?"<br /><br />"I noticed her, Mrs. Sours."<br /><br />"Really?"<br /><br />"Yeah. I read it and noticed that you always make us read the stories that have women in them."<br /><br />"Sneaky, aren't I?"Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-82368088815817473882010-08-10T16:36:00.004-04:002010-08-10T18:06:19.693-04:00Opinionation<span style="font-style:italic;">Pace</span> Stanley Fish, who is always worth reading, even when he's wrong, plagiarism is a big moral deal.<br /><br />Fish offers several cogent arguments to the contrary in his recent "Opinionator" piece, "<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/plagiarism-is-not-a-big-moral-deal/">Plagiarism Is Not a Big Moral Deal</a>," the most insightful of which is that professional standards are not the same as moral imperatives.<br /><br />This resembles the principle that appears in legal theory as the difference between <span style="font-style:italic;">mala prohibita</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">mala in se</span>: that is, the difference between merely procedural crimes (e.g., driving down the wrong side of the road) and crimes that are morally objectionable in themselves (e.g., murder). <br /><br />In the latter case, the law recognizes acts of moral significance. In the former case, moral significance (if there is any) is the creation of the law--if there were no traffic law, there would be no moral significance in choosing which side of the road to drive down. This is part of why traffic violations that result in no harm to person or property are minimally punished. They're not a big deal. We punish them only because having a system of traffic regulation is, overall, a good thing, not because there is an eternal moral imperative to drive on the right side of the road.<br /><br />Fish wants us to view plagiarism as something like a <span style="font-style:italic;">malum prohibitum</span>: something that violates the merely procedural dictates of a self-contained community.<br /><br />But my language begins to betray me already.<br /><br />Fish does not use the word "community" in reference to academia--only in reference to golfers. Academia is "our house," a "guild," a "context of practice," a language game which students must learn to play.<br /><br />It is no accident that Fish does not call academia a community. A community is more morally weighty than a guild or a "context of practice."<br /><br />Fish's overall point, by the way, is not that plagiarism shouldn't be punished--it is that there is no philosophical warrant for valuing originality. And in this, he is correct.<br /><br />But codes against plagiarism are not about protecting original work. Standards of proper citation do not exist to protect the originator of an idea. That's the difference between plagiarism codes and copyright law.<br /><br />Standards of proper citation exist to cultivate habits of worthy discourse within the academic community. (And, yes, I am just silly enough to pretend that something called "the academic community" exists, or at least could.) They exist to train us to participate in the tradition of academic discussion.<br /><br />Proper citation trains us in courtesy--we acknowledge our intellectual debts both for the sake of our intellectual parents and for the sake of our current conversation partners. In the former sense, our intellectual parents may have a stake in the conversation in which we are quoting them; proper citation courteously invites them into that conversation, as it were. In the latter sense, citing our sources allows our current conversation partners to understand most fully what we are saying. We do our conversation partners the courtesy of aiding their investigation into our arguments.<br /><br />Proper citation trains us in truth-telling. As the previous point suggests, when we acknowledge our intellectual debts, we allow for the fullest possible understanding of our claims and arguments. This transparency may make our arguments vulnerable; perhaps the scholar whose phrasing we found so felicitous was known for eliding fact and assertion, or perhaps the "varied" studies we are marshaling to prove our points were all funded by the same super-conglomerate. Proper citation is a kind of full disclosure, the kind of openness that is necessary for excellent discourse.<br /><br />Proper citation trains us in respect. Acknowledging our intellectual debts is a kind of justice--giving someone her due, as Thomas Aquinas put it (more or less, somewhere-or-other). If we have been taught, our teacher has earned something from us--not the recognition of his originality, but the recognition of his generosity in teaching us (however remote or impersonal the mode of teaching).<br /><br />And proper citation trains us in diligence. Students and scholars who plagiarize are not, in general, trying to claim false credit for original thoughts--they are trying to get out of doing hard work. Charitable description, thoughtful analysis, and persuasive rhetoric are difficult practices to master; proper citation is itself, as Fish acknowledges, a kind of skill that one must master. Anti-plagiarism codes are designed to identify and, yes, even weed out those who do not care to do that work, to learn those skills.<br /><br />Respect, truth-telling, courtesy, diligence--these are all morally weighty terms. If Fish is right that originality is not a terribly interesting or valuable thing, he misses that it is the least of the things proper citation is designed to cultivate.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-64697460095347341372010-08-01T10:09:00.005-04:002010-08-01T10:42:45.706-04:00ExclusivityWhy is "exclusive" a positive adjective when applied to celebrity wedding locations, clubs, parties, and educational institutions, but not religions?<br /><br />Even where one suspects that privacy might be a reasonable desire--a wedding, say--no one troubles to be troubled by the substitution of the word "exclusive." A private wedding and an exclusive wedding are two very different things.<br /><br />Exclusivity in this sense depends on the deliberate cultivation of the desire to be included. That is, it's not an exclusive wedding if no one but the invitees wants to come. It's not an exclusive college if no one applies. Exclusivity requires desirability. One must constantly and conscientiously widen the circle of people who <span style="font-style:italic;">want</span> to be included, even as one narrows the circle of those who are.<br /><br />Exclusivity in this sense also depends on the opacity and difficulty of the entrance requirements. If it were clear how to dress to get the bouncer's approval, everyone could do it, and then it wouldn't be an exclusive club.<br /><br />Race, family heritage (often conceived either in ethnic or religious terms), and income level are among the most effective inclusion requirements, because they are easy to evaluate and difficult or impossible to change.<br /><br />Social connectedness is less straightforward, and it works just as effectively for exactly that reason. If no one with sufficient standing within the community is willing to vouch for a newcomer, he remains on the outside. But "sufficient standing within the community" comes from a complex computation of largely unarticulated factors. Who knows how to become an Important Person, important enough that one's coattails are worth riding?<br /><br />All of this is frankly disturbing.<br /><br />But no one is disturbed.<br /><br />To become a Christian, all one has to do is want to become a Christian. To become an acknowledged member of the Body of Christ, all one has to do is declare oneself willing to follow its head, the Crucified and Risen One, and willing to be called upon to live up to that public commitment.<br /><br />Christianity is the only "exclusive" group whose standard and method of inclusion is so clear, so straightforward, and so entirely in the hands of the person desiring membership.<br /><br />And yet its brand of exclusivity is the most vilified.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-58105316706760046322010-07-01T12:11:00.003-04:002010-08-10T18:11:41.800-04:00Children With Home Computers Likely to Have Lower Test Scores<a href="http://news.duke.edu/2010/06/divide.html">Children With Home Computers Likely to Have Lower Test Scores</a><br /><br />The title of the above article is completely misleading and false, so ignore it. A better title might have been "Access to Computers Not a Cure-All; May Even Cause Harm."<br /><br />The findings of the study are interesting: children from disadvantaged homes who gained access to computers performed measurably worse on end-of-state testing than children from disadvantaged homes who had no computers.<br /><br />Not only is access to technology not a panacea, it actually exacerbates the educational disadvantage. The researchers were appropriately modest in their conclusions--"In disadvantaged households, parents are less likely to monitor children's computer use and guide children in using computers for educational purposes"--but I think one could reasonably draw several stronger inferences from the study.<br /><br />1. Parents matter most. Again and again, failed educational reforms and scientific studies have shown that parental involvement is the one factor that can never be ruled out. Any educational reform (I would even expand this and say <span style="font-style:italic;">any</span> reform, because I'm an ethicist and we like to sensationalize like that) that doesn't involve strengthening the family will probably fail.<br /><br />2. Parenting well requires setting limits. Presumably, the children in the disadvantaged households used the computers as they saw fit. <span style="font-style:italic;">They were wrong</span>. Children do not have infallible instincts for what they need, what is good for them, what will bring them safely to adulthood. Children need parents who guide them not only through positive modeling and suggestions but also through limit-setting. Saying yes to what's good is vital, and parents do well to phrase things as positively as possible. ("Oh, sure, you can play that game--just as soon as your homework is done." "Umm . . . let's find a more appropriate show to watch." "Well, let's make a date for you to play x-box with your friends on Saturday instead of today.") But saying no to what's bad is just as vital. ("You must never, <span style="font-style:italic;">ever</span> surf the internet when I'm not at home.")<br /><br />3. Technology is rarely the answer. Technology cannot fix injustice, historical or actual; it cannot redress wrongs; it cannot make us more moral people. If we are not already the kind of people who will raise our children conscientiously, who are intellectually curious, who have self-discipline, who are generous with the needy, who will pay a just wage, technological advances will <span style="font-style:italic;">at best</span> fail to alleviate--and will sometimes positively exaggerate--our social failings.<br /><br />4. This particular piece of technology--computers--comes pre-programmed, as it were, with a tendency toward harm. The irony is too delicious not to enjoy: information technologies tend to make us less intelligent. Absent some sort of external, imposed structure (a parent's insistence that we finish our homework first, a determination to balance our checkbooks by hand anyway, a conviction that "some things just shouldn't be blogged"), we are <span style="font-style:italic;">worse off</span> with computers than without. It behooves us, then, to develop and pursue practices of restraint with regard to their use and proliferation.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-83999767758700744982010-05-24T13:19:00.002-04:002010-05-24T13:31:11.061-04:00Builders In MinistryI've just become a contributor to Southwestern College's <a href="http://www.buildersinministry.blogspot.com/">Builders In Ministry blog</a>--a blog that celebrates and discusses the ministries of friends of Southwestern.<br /><br />Feel free to pop over just to view <a href="http://buildersinministry.blogspot.com/2010/05/giving-thanks.html">my post</a>, or to see what various ministries Builders are involved in!Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14703787.post-24455661414899693442010-05-06T11:29:00.003-04:002010-06-28T15:09:27.083-04:00Anorexia and AutonomyRudolph Bell's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226042057?ie=UTF8&tag=homesthedocto-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0226042057">Holy Anorexia</a> is an important example of the fruitfulness of cross-disciplinary study in religion.<br /><br />His study probes the theological, historical, and psychological meaning of extreme fasting behaviors in medieval women whose asceticism was usually seen as evidence of holiness. Avoiding the facile ascription of mental illness to these women ("Oh, they must've been, like, anorexic or something!"), he nonetheless takes his cue from current psychiatric evaluations and treatments of (modern) anorexia nervosa.<br /><br />Anorectic behavior comes about in response to an intricate yet convoluted web of signals a modern girl (anorexia generally arises in females and during adolescence) receives in regard to her appearance. Thinness (and physical beauty more broadly) is one of a few traits consistently approved and rewarded in young females, yet the steps that a girl might take to achieve those rewards may prompt correction, disapproval, or intervention from parents or such other authorities as educators or medical caregivers. The twin incentives of societal approval and parental opposition feed the anorexic girl’s choice to control her own body through self-starvation—all the more so as her successes in weight loss and self-assertion mount. <br /><br />Analogously, a medieval woman had fewer avenues of expressing or embodying holiness than were available to men, and the ascetic practices which might identify a woman as holy could just as easily have been viewed as evidence of heresy or demon possession as of beatitude. The “holy anorexic” is confirmed in her path of self-starvation both by the ascription of holiness conferred on account of her suffering and by the suspicion aroused by her extreme practices of asceticism, especially where that suspicion is allayed or countered through divine intervention.<br /><br />The struggle for autonomy looms large in Bell’s renarration of these saints’ vitae. While his efforts to offer a psychoanalytic reading of these women are unimpressive—particularly in the absence of any serious or consistent engagement with the problem of collaborative authorship present in virtually all of these texts—his identification of the persistence of themes of self-assertion in the face of parental, religious, or social conflict is helpful.<br /><br />When one is obliged to suffer the removal of one’s autonomy—whether in the form of a forced marriage, opposition to taking religious orders, or physical or sexual abuse—choosing another form of suffering—starvation, disfigurement, isolation—functions as a reassertion of one’s autonomy. The relationship between suffering and consent is inverted, transforming utterly the meaning and experience of them both. In the first case, the injury is all but identical with the removal of choice; in the second, the retrieval of autonomy is identical with the (chosen) injury. That the chosen suffering is further rewarded by its association with otherworldliness, whether of the divine or demonic sort, only amplifies the sense of transformation.<br /><br />Despite his misstep in attempting to psychoanalyze historical figures with fragmentary, consciously scripted, and/or heavily edited literary works as his only evidence, Bell's work is enormously important for his having probed this intersection of autonomy and suffering. Many modern discussions of suffering (and its relief) are dependent on inchoate assumptions about exactly this relationship, and any work that prompts a more intentional examination of the topic is worth a read.Sarah Conrad Sourshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05185078182316296961noreply@blogger.com0