2007 Theological, Philosophical Conversation- Session 1, Part 1

thank you!!! about time the sessions with caputo and kearney got posted on the podcast…i’ve been waiting for months! Can’t wait to hear them all.

who is the moderator? Tony Jones? his link is kind of vacuous…is that the point?

Ha ha. Tony is the national coordinator for Emergent Village (which is the group that sponsored this conference/conversation and this podcast. I think the only paid staff really of Emergent Village. He is a Ph.D. student in Practical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is trying to finish his dissertation while traveling around speaking and writing. He has written a few books if you search on Amazon.com with his name, you can easily find them. Tony lives in Minnesota. Of course, he is also controversial because people worry about whether he and Emergent Village folks are asking too many questions about too many things. I guess that is up to you to decide after doing some more digging and reading and listening.

Tony Jones sometimes seems less postmodern than some of the others in the Emergent Church movement. Perhaps it would help Tony to do more reading in other theologies such as postcolonial, feminist, womanist, etc.

For example, there was an interesting interaction during the conference when a woman asked about the lack of representation by other women. Jack Caputo responded by suggesting a feminist seminar and a feminist theologian. Tony Jones, however, responded by talking about the Trinitarian theology of a white male author. Tony’s gaff exposed a lack of insight into white privilege in general and European male hegemony in particular. Thankfully Caputo pointed about this dynamic at the conference. An authentically postmodern conversation needs to include more than the perspectives brought by upper-class white men.

Some helpful dialogue partners in the postmodern conversation in Christianity could include people such as: Kwok Pui-Lan, Musa Dube, Robert E. Goss, Mona West, Frances Kendall, Delores Williams, Fumitaka Matsuoka, etc.

Let’s continue to expand the conversation!