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Thursday, March 5, 2009

Blogs as Revelatory Texts

Odd-bit post today. Tonight I begin tutoring a class at Bishopdale Theological College, Nelson on 'Biblical Interpretation'. One book I have dragged off my shelves is Sandra M. Schneiders' The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture. This is a good book as far as hermeneutics goes - many are long (this is middling in length), turgid (not here), and overly complex (not too bad). But Sandra M. Schneiders is in the blog world today; and this book is not the reason, indeed I have not seen it mentioned.

Damien Thompson, Holy Smoke (more accurately it might be entitled 'Holy Smote'!!), picks up on an email from Sandra which is doing the rounds (presumably no hoax), perhaps from First Things, since he approvingly quotes Elizabeth Scalia writing there on the email. Scalia herself has posted about this article on her blog, where one can read that the story broke in the National Catholic Reporter. Still with me?

In a nutshell the story in these revelatory texts is that Sandra M. Schneiders ('Catholic biblical scholar and feminist' according the publishers blurb on my book) is organising passive resistance to an inspection of the religious order she belongs to. The critique asks the question, does this order belong to Rome or not? If it does not, is a 'new Catholic church' in America being birthed through Schneider and her sisters' actions?

Hang on. We have heard that story already, mutatis mutandis, in North America Anglicanland!!!

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