As I meant to mention some days ago, but apparently neglected to actually post, Jim West has responded not once but twice to my post expressing my lack of understanding of his outlook.
In one of them, he says that he is OK with not being understood by me, since Bultmann wasn’t understood by Barth. That’s all well and good, but I wonder whether Barth’s theology might not have been better if he had understood Bultmann – in which case, perhaps Jim should offer others all the help he can, in case the situations are similar.
In the other post, he provides a list of people whose opinions he cares about – unlike mine. And since Jim places God in his list of the living rather than the dead, at least those who suspected that he might be connected with that school of thought may now understand him better. In which case, this was all worth it!
On a related but more serious note, Mark Goodacre had a post recently lamenting that there seems to be a trend in blogging moving towards a more “vertical” approach (the blogger posts opinion pieces, disseminating their through) rather than the classic “horizontal” model of blogging (in which blogs are part of a conversation with one another). Hopefully the interaction between Jim and myself will seem encouraging to him!
The above picture is from the alas now defunct Dr. Jim’s Thinking Shop and Tea Room.
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