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Notes -
Isn't that a mite uncharitable?
I don't know what syncretic cringe Kuile and Thurston have posted in their other work. But in this quote they're just observing a tendency to treat practices like a buffet. No claims that doing so is right, morally or logically. No smug humanism.
Normally, I'd say claiming someone "doesn't believe in anything" is an inflammatory claim demanding evidence. But I suspect looking for such evidence will 1) raise your blood pressure and 2) devolve into gut judgments about sincerity. I don't think that buys us anything.
I don't think it is. Look at what the divinity student quoted is doing; he's not studying divinity, he's doing Ye Olde Post-Modernist Deconstruction. They're not interested in theology as theology but as something they can mix in with mujerism, BIPOC rights, queering society, all the rest of the band.
Like the OP - he didn't want community so he sat on his own eating the lunch. But you can't get the warm fuzzies without community, and the reason the chanting etc. works is because it's done in community under a shared set of belief and values. Like the other characters in the Little Red Hen story who want the bread without putting in the work, if the Hare Krishna adopted his approach you'd have a bunch of individuals sloping in at different times to aimlessly hum off-tune as each did their own little song. That wouldn't give OP what he wanted and what he visited for in order to get.
I’m saying I don’t think he tipped that hand in his quote. You or I can say “gosh these folks sure are trying to uncouple their cake and eat it too,” and that doesn’t make us postmodernists.
I hate trying to defend this guy, because I looked up his current projects and they’re more or less caricatures of what you‘re talking about. I’m reasonably confident that he does, in fact, want syncretic vibes-based spirituality without religion. But as far as this conversation was going he was making a reasonable observation! There are a bunch of folks into decoupling; he’s one of them!
So I find your diatribe about despising his attitude to be a little out of place. The religious equivalent of Man Always Gets Little Rush Out Of Telling People John Lennon Beat Wife. Thanks, that’s nice, but can we stick to comparing albums?
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