Bohemians hankering to be Philistines

I've been monitoring the toing and froing over Frank's comments on the iMonk. http://centuri0n.blogspot.com/

Let me say at the outset that I have no personal opinion about the iMonk I almost never peruse his blog. He and I have no prior history.

But I do have a personal opinion of Frank. I have read a lot of his stuff. He and I have had a number of direct exchanges in public and private. On the issue of ECB, it even got a bit tense and testy--on both sides.

I have no reason to suppose that Frank's motives are anything other than honorable.

It seems to me that Frank is comparing iMonk’s position to the village atheist who rails against the church because it's "full of hypocrites."

And Frank is making that comparison because, in a sense, he's been the village atheist. He sees the emergent movement as a halfway house on the way to where he once was. And he's seen where it comes out.

No one knows Marxism better than a disillusioned ex-Marxist like Orwell or Koestler. They've seen it inside and out.

The well-heeled Bohemian can flirt with Marxism because he's never seen it from the barbed-wire side of the fence, but only the gilt-edged side of capitalism. You know the type--the radical chic young anarchist, with his cell phone and iPod, firebombing cities which host the WTO, screaming police brutality when the cops cuff him and haul his Abercrombie & Fitch fitted behind off to the pokey.

But if, like Frank, you been on both ends of the spectrum, you have a better perspective on ideological or theological trends.

Nothing is more olde hatte to someone over 40 than the latest theological “innovation.” The reason we're not more "with it" is because we're more "was it." When we look at the likes of McLaren, we see a square version of Bishop Robinson or Harvey Cox in love beads and a Nehru collar.