I mean consider this statement: “I am not interested in description, theology (crypto or any other variety), or ecumenicism. If someone has written something on theory and method (regardless of whether they are a member of NAASR) I want MTSR to be the first journal that pops into their heads for places to submit.”

What if they’ve written something on theory and method in theology? Well, now you don’t want MTSR to be the journal that pops into their head, because you’re not interested, even though it’s theory and method.

as a man, and too bad I have to qualify this as being a straight man, married, three kids, who wears polish on his toes, and openly I might add, this is an area that I think the feminist movement forgot about.

why do I like it? it’s a bit of color on an overall drab canvas-guys aren’t given alot of latitude with style and expression for one. I like the shine, and I think everybody’s feet look better polished. it hurts no one, it’s fun to try the thousands of colors out there, and it’s not permanent like a tattoo-I can show it or not, change it when I want, and wear it or not.

I notice women when their toes are colored, or even just clear polished glance at their toes a lot more than when they are not polished. I think it’s because it just looks so darned good they keep admiring the look of it all. well why would anyone assume that a guy would like that any less? guess what? they don’t. they find it attractive as well. and besides, why would anyone care what is or is not on my toes??? if they do, then does not everybody not think that is too weird for words???? life is short, somebody will always find something to criticize you for.

to my original point. both men and women have bought into the guys can’t wear polish because it’s only for girls. why? the only answer that comes to mind is “because”, which is no answer-it’s an autopilot opinion based on no support.

the only real reason, based on substantial reflection and study and personal reflection, is that male things are deemed more important than female things, which is why if men do what girls like then they downgrade themselves, while if a woman imitates men, then she upgrades. but that means the whole culture believes women are second class as and shouldn’t be imitated at all. that’s also why even today, while accepted, still raises eyebrows that a fellow becomes a nurse, but the woman who becomes a fireman is applauded. therefore, any man who does anything of female typed activity must be gay, again even more like third class. yet where did the even idea of man doing women things become even that?? so I shouldn’t cook, or help my wife clean the house? see how far that will get you! those things should mean I’m gay too, n’est pas? let’s keep that logical continuum. and heaven forbid we associate color now too with that. hmmm. I like red on my toes, but that’s a woman’s color, not for a man. dang, have to now trade in my red truck because it’s red, and by reason, I don’t want to be thought of as gay. see how nonsensical that is?

the feminists, when trying to bring parity to being female should have realized from the start, that in effect they were saying, male patriarchal society is right, men and their activities are more important, so let’s get society to accept us better if we are allowed to act like them. of course, because of where they started from, they probably figured pay and opportunities were more important than self and image. understandable, but wrong, and today that needs to be corrected.

in any event, I like my toes polished and many men do too. not my fingers because I’m hard on my hands and my fingernails would be trashed quickly. that looks bad on anybody, although the younger women don’t seem to have an issue with that for some reason. a lot of them wear color, but don’t maintain it and it looks terrible. just my 2 cents. but good post

Dear Religious Studies Faculty and Students,

I was very sad to hear of the recent death of Prof. Tim Murphy, and I wanted to take a moment to send my condolences. Tim was one of my teachers at Case Western Reserve University, and he is a big part of why I now find myself in “this business,” as he liked to call it. I had been out of touch with him for a while, but one of the last times I did exchange emails with him, he expressed some hesitation at accepting credit for having inspired me to pursue a career in the academic study of religion. He knew that the world of academe could be unforgiving, but he also had an enthusiasm for the subject and a belief in its importance that was infectious. So, I think he understood that once you caught the bug, “the business” was something you would have to suffer for the sake of “the art.”

The “art” that I learned from Tim was that of scholarship, which he approached both as a constructive and a critical discipline. As a student of Foucault, Tim knew that “disciplines” were always normative, and he felt deeply the responsibility of being a good teacher of this one. I never felt that he was simply presenting information, but rather, he was initiating us into a praxis, which he wanted to be sure that we were equipped to do with the requisite blend of generosity and fierce criticism that characterized his own work. Indeed, criticism was a generous act, for Tim, because, as Marx showed us, criticism sets people free. Criticism unmasks ideology, which turns our most cherished ideals into a prison.

As an undergraduate, Tim gave me the gift of being able to turn this critique on my own relatively unreflective Catholic faith, which actually breathed new life into it by allowing me to separate the ideal from the ideological. I’m sure he would now be truly horrified to hear that he not only inspired me to become a scholar of religion, but also that he had helped me be a better Catholic in the process! But this is the thing that I don’t think some of his colleagues both at Case and in the academy understood: for Tim, religion could be both illusion and illumination, and he really didn’t care which it was. What he did care about was the ability to separate the two, and this is the job of the scholar of religious studies. Nothing can ever be too sacred to submit to critique. But, as a believer, I have also found that rigorous and merciless critique is the best thing you can do to and for the “sacred.”

Of course, not all believers (or scholars!) agree. They often take offense at critique, as if somehow being diagnosed with a case of ideology impugns their character. As if we aren’t all susceptible to ideology, just as we might get any illness regardless of our moral standing. Tim showed me that you could critique someone’s ideas without attacking their character or identity. He also taught me that not everyone would be able to see the difference, but that as a scholar, this is the risk you take. This is something like the dentist who is hated for extracting the rotten tooth. Or, to borrow an image from Tim’s Nietzsche, the scholar/critic of religion is like Christ-the-idiot, whose revolutionary earnestness always comes across as slightly uncouth to those “mature” enough to realize that polite company demands a bit of ironic hypocrisy.

In a field so often characterized by both irony and hypocrisy, it was always reassuring to know that Tim was out there, cheering on those who take this work seriously as a “discipline” in the true sense. All this is to say that I am in solidarity with your community in Alabama as you both celebrate and grieve Tim’s passing, and I am so happy that he was able to find a place that was so supportive of his work, which I will always consider to be a gift to both scholars and practitioners of religion everywhere.

In Peace,

Eric Bugyis

PhD Candidate
Religious Studies
Yale University

While it likely comes through in my post that I do support this movement, my scholarly interest is of course different, as I’m sure is evident. How and why groups will deploy notions like “spirituality”–terms that are rarely of their own invention–is fascinating to watch and reveals, I think, something about how processes of imagining and re-imaging identity have their root in social struggles.