Opinion of William Stringfellow

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

American neo-orthodox theologian and a recipient of a rare compliment from Karl Barth (for whom see Tweed's thread). Great elucidator of the idea of the New Testament 'principalities and powers' at work in the modern world and contemporary power structures. Civil rights lawyer in Harlem, then local notable on Block Island. Hid Daniel Berrigan in his house for a while.

Strong FF vote from me.

[afleitch]

I tend not to care about these opinion threads because a. They always tend to be a relatively non objectionable Christian and b. They are always Christian

I will however comment on this one as I know enough about him and care enough to express it. Stripping him back, he essentially holds to two concepts; a quasi-humanist approach to life and enjoying life and dealing with to people on an ‘individual to individual’ level. Secondly there is a potentially conflicting mistrust of power structures or social structures as a manifestation of (I really don’t want to use this word) ‘evil.’ Of course, given his background and the circles he moved around in that can be understood better.

The reason I call it conflicting is that he was too much of an individualist and bombast for his own good in the sense that what he couldn’t reconcile in the world around him seems to have seeped into his own personal life. He saw his own sexuality as a form of gifted weakness and thought that the physical expression of that sexuality (or any other for that matter) is somehow hedonistic when individuals pursue one night stands or go to clubs because they wrongly think that ‘loneliness can be conquered by erotic infatuation.’ He’s not entirely wrong but suggesting that ‘no one may really find his own identity in another, least of all in the body of another’ (and he extends that to familial relationships too) is quite a sad conclusion. Of course he then goes on to say that this void can be filled by Jesus by ‘enjoying God’ (and I won’t go into his understanding of his relationship with god) and he vocationally commits, in a rather protracted way, to celibacy. It’s not that far removed from what closeted Christians still say and what some organisations try to sell them (though such attitudes would have horrified him) Of course we now know he had a companion (‘this sweet companion’) after this point and while you cannot know what that relationship entailed, his tacit acknowledgement of it seems to put a hole in his own conclusion that you cannot find your identity in another person. This is an idea which anyone who is in a committed relationship and understands the ‘completeness’ that this relationship gives to you, would dismiss.

He was progressive with his advocacy seeing homosexuality as being morally neutral and the idea of sexualities being incompatible with Christianity as being absurd questions and wrote some very interesting stuff on different sexualities. However the ‘sex’ part of sexuality seemed to escape him. Perhaps he was asexual, perhaps it was a product of the times but it in his writings it seemed that physical ‘sex’ was part of that swirling, impersonal, ‘idolatrous’ outside that he had so mistrusted that shouldn’t be let in. Probably the best gauge is his partner Anthony Towne (who wonderfully described Billy Graham as having ‘halitosis of the soul’) in his poetry. The only one I know of seems to also be the most helpful is where he anthropomorphises God yelling ‘Celibacy? No!...I want more life’ (or words to that effect) which seems to be a dig at celibacy as a nobly devotional act. Given that the work was dedicated in part to his partner there may have been a message for him there too.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I tend not to care about these opinion threads because a. They always tend to be a relatively non objectionable Christian and b. They are always Christian

I predict you'll appreciate the next poll I post.

______

Thank you for making this post. I can't promise I'll be able to respond to it in great detail particularly soon but I'll definitely try. There definitely is something almost inconsolably lonely about his extension of the rejection of worldly sources of delight to committed romantic and familial relationships, and I don't like him on subjects like marriage and family for that reason; his relationship with Anthony was certainly hypocritical in this regard (in that it demonstrates that he did too find himself in or at least with another person, no matter what he said) but it's also, for the exact same reasons, helps (for lack of a better word) humanize his views on these subjects.

He's definitely a much better diagnostician than he is a therapist. He has that in common with people like Simone Weil.

Talking about this 'finding oneself in another concept' and Stringfellow's ambiguous rejection of that, I'm actually wondering if a thread on Emmanuel Levinas might be worthwhile.