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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.3 Memory and revelation in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
In United States at least we use phrase like “I am a person of habit!” So for example at certain food establishments I always eat salmon. I always mow my lawn on Sunday. My habit is to read the Obits and the Comics. Habits are not seen as rituals albeit they are.
Rituals, are reserved for particular space or concepts– the Lord’s Prayer is a…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 2.1 The stoning of Achan in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
Can you think of any stories from your nation’s history that are being told differently because the perspective of the victim is being included? What other stories might be awaiting revision? Perhaps you can think of stories now in the news that
Most Native peoples stories blame the victim. Slavery story! The way we related to Mexico and t…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 2.1 The stoning of Achan in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
Why does James say that we are right to feel queasy about stories in the Bible such as the stoning of Achan?
They are built around a scapegoat model. We should feel uncomfortable with them at some level.
Did you feel queasy?
No!
Why or why not?
I have been working through the work of Girard, Williams and Alison for many many years. I…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 2.1 The stoning of Achan in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
Because I have never read the stories as absolute history or thought of the stories as actual event/ historical happenings I am most often not disturbed by the stories of the Old Testament. However, if I were to be disturbed it would be by those that propose some form of phantasm or extravagance. For example, I find myself listening to the story…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.5 Dead man talking in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
Do you wish that Luke had included everything that Jesus told the disciples on the Emmaus road?
Wishing on something that is not seems to me to be a futile question. I am not sure it matters what I wish in light of what is and is not.
What stories from the Old Testament would you like Jesus to explain?
I honestly have never thought about…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.5 Dead man talking in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
When you are the host, what gift or experience do you hope to give to your guests?
The host is concerned with order, time, preparation, taste, quality and comfort. The gift that the host brings is one of ease of association. While the host may be hurried, it is the host requirement that the guest feel a sense of flow and ease.
What is the…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.5 Dead man talking in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
I have spent most of today thinking about time and how my life is narrated via time and via timeliness. As a clergy person and University professor meetings, schedules etc.. . . make the essential essence of my life. I am time bound and time laden. As a time bound and time laden creature I begin to exist within the relational categories that…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.4 The road to Emmaus in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
What might it mean for us to be listening to the unheard voice in the midst of confusing and traumatic events in our own communities or society?
Working with young adults who are college students as well as their parents makes such a question very difficult. Unheard voice is a category that I often feel but know that their is a voice that is…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.4 The road to Emmaus in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
James used the term “hermeneutic” at the opening of this module. Do you recall what that word means?
Hermeneutics in their formal definition is a means by which we either study or proceed through a set of information or evidence or text etc….
What hermeneutic have you used or been taught to use for reading Scripture?
I was taught the His…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.4 The road to Emmaus in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
share your favorite news sources. Can you defend your news source as “objective”? How would you describe its editorial bias?
NPR is my primary news source— it is biased and I know it and as a general rule I agree with the bias it has. I also read internet stories but don’t actually think of them as news, I watch very little TV. On local iss…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.4 The road to Emmaus in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your lives.
Who makes me who I am and how I came to have the particular way of looking at the world is a constant question. Likewise, as I have been living alone these past three years (post divorce) I have had to learn how to figure…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.3 Memory and revelation in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
Why do you think the title of the accompanying essay for the first three Modules of the course is, “Don’t speak until you’re spoken to”?
For me speech is a learned and mimicked practice. You cannot speak until words are formed within you.
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.3 Memory and revelation in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
James describes our memories as being constructed from our attempts to start to tell a story about ourselves.
What memories play an important role in your story?
Church in childhood, meeting my ex-wife, birth of children, growth of children, near death of a child, work with students at University, learning to be honest about my self, divorce,…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.3 Memory and revelation in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
: why might God want to gift us with some revisions to our current story of goodness?
I think the predominant story of the Latin West is a dangerous story. It is story wrapped up in the dualism of good and evil. I cannot image God is too awfully happy with how we have interpreted the creation narrative.
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.3 Memory and revelation in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
Good people are good because they…”
I think that is a funny way to begin a statement. However, good people are good precisely because goodness is what they were created to be. It might be just as interesting to suggest that bad people are good because. . . .. That is, who determines the narrative, who tells the story. If the gift that we rec…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.3 Memory and revelation in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
I am actually not sure what I am being asked to reflect upon. It may be my starting point or it could be that I am so familiar with Rene Girard and the work that I am a bit puzzled as to how to say how I see this stuff showing up in my life.
For example, I accept that the other forms me! I have never, from the earliest ages believed that a…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.2 The social other in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
“There is a real ‘me’ but it is real as a project over time that is being brought into being through this particular body, born in this particular time and place to these particular parents. It is how this body has learned to negotiate over time with the ‘we’ which precedes it and is around it. It is this body over time that is different from anyb…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.2 The social other in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
What do you think about the concept of the social other? Does it makes sense to you or do you have questions about it?
For me the concept of the social other is a given! That is, I have never thought of myself as existing outside the bounds of a body or a community. That is, until the last few years when divorce became a reality and I found…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.2 The social other in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
1.2 The social other: Patterns of desire
In addition to the teacher, mentor or role model you identified as the one who inducted you into your habit, add the following details:Teacher, mentor, leader, parent wise I can see four or five specific times within my development where either influenced of formed:
Maternial in such things as feeding,…[Read more]
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Michael R. Bartley replied to the topic 1.1 An odd beginning in the forum <i>Jesus the Forgiving Victim</i> Online Course Discussion Forum 8 years, 8 months ago
The Phrase, “Listening to the Unheard Voice” if I take Jame’s commitment that he wants to make to anthropology serious should not begin with the out there divine voice but may that intimate personal voice of the human-self and the human-other in the person of the Victim Christ!
It is at this point that I have to admit that, as one trained in…[Read more]
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