Jun 25, 2020
Professors Reed and Butler are differently highlighting a basic insight about scholarship: we cannot separate the work from the person. We cannot love the scholarship and feel better about ourselves for hating the scholar’s sin. Whether intended or not, to promote a person’s work by engaging it is to amplify their prestige and to route legitimacy to them. And this disproportionately happens for powerful white men in the academic study of Bible and religion.
Stephen Young at Religion Dispatches. LOVE THE SCHOLARSHIP BUT HATE THE SCHOLAR’S SIN?: ‘HIMPATHY’ FOR AN ACADEMIC PEDOPHILE ENABLES A CULTURE OF ABUSE