Clowns Teaching at Catholic Colleges

Attention is often directed at the number of professors who teach at Catholic colleges and universities who have nothing but scorn for Church teaching.  However, too little attention is paid to the fact that many of the same individuals are politicized idiots.  Case in point Michael Eric Dyson who teaches sociology at Georgetown.  Dyson is a Baptist and on wife number three. The judgment of the man is demonstrated by his calling the scandal dogged Attorney General Eric Holder “the Moses of our time”.

In an outing this week on MSNBC, Dyson, in attacking Phil Robertson’s comments against homosexual conduct,  said that heterosexual Christian men might be viewed by some as  having an erotic attraction to Jesus Christ.  Ed Morrissey at Hot Air gives us the gory details of this blasphemy;

The Phil Robertson/A&E flap has produced some silly commentary, but perhaps none quite so silly as this exchange on MSNBC earlier this week. Joy Reid filled in for Ed Schultz on his show last Monday and invited Michael Eric Dyson to discuss the contretemps over Robertson’s comments on homosexuality and religion.  Dyson argues at the end of this clip that Robertson attempted to “us[e] Jesus in making Jesus co-sign all of this bigotry here,” and then almost in the same breath accused Christian men who profess love of Jesus as being, er … you know (via The Right Scoop and Truth Revolt):

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity and the rest of those folks ought to be ashamed of themselves. And gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual people ought to speak up and link their own fate to African-American people because ultimately we’re in the thing together.

JOY REID, SUBSTITUTE HOST: But what do you think of this attempt to recruit essentially Rosa Parks?

DYSON: Oh my God.

REID: Because this is something that has been done before on the Right.

DYSON: Right. Right.

REID: Like in anytime that something they say is taking as offensive by African-Americans or taken as offensive by the LGBT community…

DYSON: Right.

REID: …you get, “Well, Martin Luther King, Jr. would’ve been on our side…

DYSON: Right.

REID: . …or Rosa Parks or, you know, Phil Robertson is the next Rosa Parks.” What do you think of that as a tactic?

DYSON: I mean it’s — well, first of all, it’s scurrilous, but it’s the same as using Jesus in making Jesus co-sign all of this bigotry here. Jesus was a Jew who, around whom a religion was made. So the anti-Semitism of many of the Christians is ironic to begin with. And then secondly, the gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual stuff – look through the Bible. There’s a lot of interesting things. The same men who will stand up in the church of all men. “I put my God, Jesus, over all women. I love him more than I love her.”

Hmmm. Do you really? That sounds interestingly homoerotic to people who are outside your religious traditions. I’m not suggesting it is but I’m suggesting that there are some very interesting, subtle, narrative tensions within the Bible itself and within Christianity beyond that.

I tried to get offended by this argument, and ended up laughing every time I tried. I mean, it takes a lot of effort to take this kind of trolling seriously, doesn’t it? According to Dyson’s CV, he’s a professor of sociology at Georgetown University, a Catholic university, but he must be the first professor at Georgetown to have never studied the difference between agape, philos, and eros.  Not all love is sexual, as even most people “outside your religious traditions” understand. Most normal people would scoff at the idea that a son’s love for his father would “sound interestingly homoerotic,” let alone that of sons for The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is the kind of commentary that only occurs in profoundly unserious circles, with MSNBC among the leading examples. I doubt that Dyson buys this schtick, which is just intended to tweak Christians who believe that Corinthians is scripture by using the “you guys are so gay!” insult, but it’s more an insult to his own audience. It’s the kind of ivory-tower sneering at those hoi polloi in the sticks that reveals more ignorance of the speaker than of anyone else. Exactly who does Dyson think would believe that professing a love of Jesus Christ equates to a homoerotic experience? Christians laugh at this, but perhaps it’s people “outside [our] religious tradition” who should be more insulted at Dyson’s assessment of their intelligence and common sense.

Go here to read the rest.  Tuition at Georgetown for an undergrad is $44,850 per year.  Too often parents make huge sacrifices to send their kids to institutions like Georgetown that purport to be Catholic and end up with their offspring being taught by people who hate what the Church stands for and who are also nitwits.  Dante would have had fun with this situation.