Jacob J, (#196), I’ll concede the point. And though I do think z has made some valid points, I think it’s preferable to give people the benefit of the doubt and avoid making too many assumptions. (Edited to add, after another look at the discussion–I don’t think that’s equivalent to avoiding the issue of how gender inevitably shapes our perspectives on this stuff. But I am nonetheless wary of generalizations.)

Geoff J and Blake, I really take issue with the way you’ve framed this, and I think you’ve pretty much missed the boat as far as the point of this discussion. But when I’m a little less burned out on the subject I plan to come back to some of the issues that got raised here, so I’m sure we’ll have a chance to re-visit this.

Jessawhy, I love the t-shirt! And yes, the Bouncer is male. But if you haven’t, you really should read more about him (see here.)

In the hopes of maybe salvaging a little bit of our reputation for friendliness, I did want to at least acknowledge some of the comments that might have gotten lost in the mayhem– wreddyornot (I can very much relate to the challenges you describe, and I think many here can as well), miles (I think those questions are exactly the ones to be asking, though I’m struggling with those issues, too), Reese (though I find the phrase “roll their big fat throbbing brains” just a little disturbing ), Martine (exactly!), newt (lol).

Thanks for playing. See you all next time.

Mea culpa. The absence of the Bouncer in a thread that clearly could have used more of him is pretty much my fault. Seraphine diligently tried to tone things down a bit, but I was possibly getting too entertained by the fireworks to do much of moderating the discussion. I’m glad to hear, though, that this seems more like an aberration than our usual style.

I know that for a while T&S was shutting down conversations at comment 100. Though I probably wouldn’t adopt that, I can kind of see the point–when threads go on and on, it often means they’ve disintegrated.

I started to attempt to write something about the question of styles of theological discussion, because I’m not comfortable with how this is getting framed (in terms of the virtue of “robust challenge” and what that means and how it’s being gendered) but I’m thinking I’m probably better off trying to put that into a new post someday, rather than try to figure it out at comment 211.

Anyway, it sounds like everyone’s bailed out anyway, but yeah, definitely time to drop this threadjack.

Usually, when I read on this blog, I find comments that address the issue of the post with conciseness and respect for both the topic and the other commenters. I’m wondering what made this post sort of fall apart into mini-scuffles instead of intelligently addressing the issue. Was it the drive to get over two hundred comments? Actually, one of the reasons I lurk on this blog is because the discussions are contained and meaningful instead of flaring into all kinds of tangents, so I can actually digest the entire discussion.

As I sifted through the comments here, I kept expecting the Bouncer to show up and say, “Back to the issue, oh ye that wander.” But the Bouncer never showed up.

Anyway, this makes me wonder why this post in particular ran away so much. I’ve seen smaller instances before, but not like this.

Yes, to the extent that someone is labeling feminism a personal trial so as to undermine feminist critiques as being personal points of view lacking force in the public arena, that is total garbage.

I still maintain that if they simply mean to acknowledge that as a feminist you are swimming against the stream which is a hard (and wearisome) thing to do then it should not be viewed negatively.

I’m sure some of both happen in practice.

Alright my work is done here. We exceeded 200 comment. I’ll bow out. This kind of rough housing flies better over at our man-place.