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Sunday, March 1, 2009
Kimball on the ECC controversy
Roger Kimball has a fine piece on the Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization controversy in the latest New Criterion. There's some new information there, so check it out. (For my own previous articles on this issue, see here, here, and here.)
Augean Stables' consideration of Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind serves as something of an analog or reference point with aspects of this encyclopedia issue: Prohibited Analysis.
Why are we not talking about the content of Mr. Kurian's ideas? Has anyone read Mr. Kurian's introduction to the ECC? We can complain about the legalities of the case, and indeed that is what Mr. Feser and others are doing. But we can also take this as an opportunity to evaluate what we mean by "Christian" in a context such as this. Surely Mr. Kurian doesn't speak for all Christians when he incorporates his own dispensationalist understanding of the End Times into his introduction to the ECC. Aside from the legal debate, I think there is ample room in a forum like this to discuss how Christians can rally around something like Mr. Kurian's ECC without having read the "offending" materials. What about the internal Christian debate? Please give us more, Mr. Feser. Or at the very least, read Mr. Kurian's work.
Augean Stables' consideration of Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind serves as something of an analog or reference point with aspects of this encyclopedia issue: Prohibited Analysis.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we not talking about the content of Mr. Kurian's ideas? Has anyone read Mr. Kurian's introduction to the ECC? We can complain about the legalities of the case, and indeed that is what Mr. Feser and others are doing. But we can also take this as an opportunity to evaluate what we mean by "Christian" in a context such as this. Surely Mr. Kurian doesn't speak for all Christians when he incorporates his own dispensationalist understanding of the End Times into his introduction to the ECC. Aside from the legal debate, I think there is ample room in a forum like this to discuss how Christians can rally around something like Mr. Kurian's ECC without having read the "offending" materials. What about the internal Christian debate? Please give us more, Mr. Feser. Or at the very least, read Mr. Kurian's work.
ReplyDelete