CRAIG BLOMBERG SAID:
“The policy on inclusive-language was created over 20 years ago in the late 1980's when 2/3 of the faculty were complementarians. I don't know of anyone today who actually penalizes students for not following the policy as a few did 20 years ago. We just encourage students to follow it and be sensitive to their brothers and sisters. If bloggers wouldn't jump to assumptions of things they have no way of actually knowing, then there wouldn't need to be so many retractions…Truth truly does divide when the ones being divided from are as quick to state unfounded opinions as truth without checking up on them as you folks are [emphasis mine].”
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/10/speech-codes.html#5945505826871314639
“Here are the standards I [Douglas Groothuis] give my students for their papers for me…The Denver Seminary Student Handbook stipulates that you must use inclusive language. Do not use ‘mankind,’ ‘man,’ etc., when you are referring to both women and men. Papers not consistently using inclusive language will be downgraded one-half grade. For help in this matter see ‘Guidelines for Non-sexist Use of Language’ from the American Philosophical Association [emphasis mine].”
http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/09/tips-for-writing-philosophy-papers.html
I hear the author of the constructive curmudgeon is not a trustworthy source.
ReplyDeleteDon't take Blomberg's word, but do take Blomberg's word.
Craig Blomberg: "Truth truly does divide when the ones being divided from are as quick to state unfounded opinions as truth without checking up on them...."
ReplyDeleteCraig Blomberg was quick to state his unfounded opinion as truth without checking up on them. As evidenced by your posting of Doug Groothuis's grading standards.
Will his pride get in the way of humbly submitting a retraction of his remarks?
CRAIG BLOMBERG SAID:
ReplyDelete“Further proof of jumping to completely wrong conclusions gratuitously: The policy on inclusive-language was created over 20 years ago in the late 1980's when 2/3 of the faculty were complementarians. As I recall it was approved by the faculty unanimously. If anything, feelings were higher in those days than they are now. That's what makes it so curious that somebody would dredge this up and speak of it as a sign of us deteriorating.”
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/10/speech-codes.html#5945505826871314639
But in a different venue he said:
“Yes, under Craig Williford, especially up until about 2006, it might have been fair to say that the issue [of gender] was starting to become a little bit of a pet issue, though some events led him to back off somewhat from it during the last two years of his presidency. Under Mark Young, who starts with us July 1, while none of us expects any changes to our lack of formal doctrinal statement one way or the other, I don't expect it to be any high profile issue at all. I still am thrilled that ours is one of the rare environments where complementarians and egalitarians can get along well, debate vigorously, and go away friends, however, and I don't expect this to change.”
http://www.denverseminary.edu/article/the-gender-neutral-bible-controversy/
Seems like more has been going on behind the scenes, as late as 2006, than his dismissive statement to me would lead the reader to suspect.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteNow that I think about it, Blomberg is rather consistent in having Denver Seminary act as the speech police and enforcing its written speech codes.
After all, he is acting as the speech police himself when he wrote in a comment on a prior thread:
"It's time for this blogsite to make a 180 degree U-turn in substance and in tone, or just stop posting. The Bible calls it "repentance."
Craig French: "I hear the author of the constructive curmudgeon is not a trustworthy source."
ReplyDeleteWell, not a trustworthy source as far as his staunch advocacy of egalitarianism is concerned.
His other stuff is okay as far as being against abortion.
I really don't know what is going on here, but while I do encourage students to use inclusive language, I do not downgrade papers that do not.
ReplyDeleteDoug Groothuis: "I really don't know what is going on here, but while I do encourage students to use inclusive language, I do not downgrade papers that do not."
ReplyDelete(1) For background, start here.
(2) If you indeed do not downgrade papers for not using "inclusive" language, then don't you think it would be helpful to your students if you modified your post "Tips for writing philosophy papers" to say so? Because last I checked it said:
"Papers not consistently using inclusive language will be downgraded one-half grade."
(3) On your blog post giving tips for writing philosophy papers, there is a commenter Sam who asked: "Regarding inclusive language, what about when we use personal pronouns to refer to hypothetical people? It used to be that people just used "he," but that became politically incorrect, so they started saying, "he or she" or "s/he." That become cumbersome, so people started saying, "she." Is "he" still okay?"
How about responding back on that thread to Sam that you do not downgrade papers for not using inclusive language?
Since when is "mankind" or "man" or, for that matter "sheep" and "deer" not inclusive?
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs an English lesson methinks.
So maybe Paul said to Timothy "I don't allow a person to teach or have authority over a person." ???
"Someone needs an English lesson methinks."
ReplyDeleteAmen to that. Man and mankind are perfectly good English words. Leftist wackoids are the ones who have proceeded to castrate the English language in our culture. Why should we capitulate to their demands?
Steve,
ReplyDeleteRegarding the recent posts about Denver Seminary's inclusivist language policy:
An older version of their handbook which used to be online here stated:
"students and faculty alike are required to use inclusive language in writing."
In an interaction with Groothuis online in May of 2007, M. Hutchens mentioned that Denver Seminary was a school where "students and faculty are required to use inclusive language in writing” and cited as his source the 2006-2007 Student Handbook, p. 51.
(see the discussion here)
Groothuis admitted this and responded: "Yes, we require inclusive language; that is merely polite and appropriate. Our non-egalitarians, such as Dr. Craig Blomberg, agree with this."
Note the word "require." Perhaps this policy has changed in the past two years. But clearly the inclusivist language was required until recently.
Michael Marlowe
Dear Michael Marlowe,
ReplyDeleteThanks for providing that link. Here's a great comment over there that pertains to the discussion here. It's by Christopher Little:
"Dr. Hutchens calls Denver Seminary “aggressively egalitarian” and quotes page 51 of the seminary’s Student Handbook: "students and faculty are required to use inclusive language in writing”. Dr. Groothuis responds:
“. . . attacking Denver Seminary as ‘aggressively egalitarian’ is untrue. We have no egalitarian test for staff, students, or faculty. We have more non-egalitarians than egalitarians on full-time faculty, including the entire New Testament faculty. Yes, we require inclusive language; that is merely polite and appropriate. Our non-egalitarians, such as Dr. Craig Blomberg, agree with this.”
I obtained my Master’s degree in systematic theology from Denver Seminary in 1985. I can tell you that “biblical egalitarianism” and women’s ordination constituted the talk of the day then on that campus, never abated as near as I can tell, and a few years ago had progressed to the point where the use of inclusive language would now be “required.” To Dr. Groothuis I would say that if that’s not clear evidence of an aggressive egalitarianism there at the seminary, I don’t know what is. I was appalled when I first learned that the, er, “hierarchy” of the seminary was going to enforce this PC nonsense on students paying good money. I agree with a previous comment here that inclusive language is not “polite and appropriate”, but “vulgar and aesthetically deplorable”. It’s not nearly as deplorable, however, as this mindless capitulation to the fascism of political correctness.
I’ll say this about Denver Seminary, however: my experience there was largely responsible for my conversion to Orthodoxy in 1992. It provided both a push and a pull. The push came from the realization I came to there about Protestantism’s inherent instability (as evidenced by this very issue), that is, when it resolves its inner tension between confessionalism and certain individualist distinctives in the direction of the latter. (Over on Dr. Groothuis’ blog, he has been waxing eloquent in his responses to me about what Scripture requires, “new light breaking forth” from it, etc. I have countered that we on this side of the fence view it merely as ideologically-driven eisegesis.) The pull, however, came from the church history classes I took there. We all know what Newman said happens when one gets deep in it. So count me as one of those Evangelicals who got disillusioned for precisely the reasons elaborated here in this discussion and who has found little reason to return to the Evangelical fold, even though he met Christ in that tradition and knows and knows of many living saints there."
Here's another delightful gem from that MereComments thread, this time from Steve Hutchens:
ReplyDelete"What angers me most about Dr. Blomberg's latest response is his accusation of his critics of a petulant refusal to understand what he is saying--of self-induced ignorance--rather than what they have demonstrated time and again to be well-informed rejection of his proposals, reasoned and evidential cause upon reasoned and evidential cause.
And then there is the announcement that we [nasty, uncharitable, disobedient, insignificant, gnat-strainers] can quibble about words while the likes of him go out to win people for Christ.
Is one interested in leading people to Christ? Well and good, but which Christ from the infinity of possible Christs would that be? No one is saved if he believes in a Christ who does not exist--a Christ, for example, whose sex is incidental, as though the foundations of the universe were not laid in and for the divine Son, from whom all human thought and language comes, and to whom it returns.
...
Failing, in our day, to see the connections between all these things--to be blind, in particular, to the diremption the grammar of egalitarian anthropology works upon Christology--bodes no better for the evangelist than the teacher."