Fishing for Truth

In today's New York Times, Stanley Fish says (subscription required) that teaching religion or teaching the Bible, without endorsing the truth claims of either, is pure foolishness. The Bible, religious doctrines, theological texts . . . everything we generally do teach in generally secular ways is just so much cartoonish trivia unless the truth claims of this material and these traditions are valid. It's "like studying the justice system and bracketing the question of justice" he fairly spits at Steve Prothero's bracketing of religious truth in the neutral zone of the religious studies classroom. Fish has gotten pretty good in his old age at fighting straw men. In this case few of us are really such aesthetes as to study religious texts without both recognizing and engaging seriously with the truth issues gleaned from these texts by any number of theologically, politically, philosophically-interested readers. But isn't it also intellectual sleight-of-hand to insist that the religious traditions and texts we study are themselves always committed to, or clearly endorse, Fish's simplistic standard: Truth? When did fundamentalist literalism, to put it polemically, become the arbiter of meaning across entire traditions, or in such complex and conflicted anthologies as the Bible? This kind of Fishy thinking, along with some territorial anxieties, led the faculty senate at my institution to vote against the creation of a religious studies certificate program a few years ago. It's disheartening to realize that the students in my classes, many of them religious people, are much more responsive to complex treatments of complex issues than the professors (like Fish) tasked with deciding upon their educational options.

Taking Tom Waits Literally

Do you know the Tom Waits song "Chocolate Jesus"? Here's a story about the real thing, from the BBC.

Storm in US over chocolate Jesus

The sculpture is due to be exhibited in the run-up to Easter

A New York gallery has angered a US Catholic group with its decision to exhibit a milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ.

The six-foot (1.8m) sculpture, entitled "My Sweet Lord", depicts Jesus Christ naked on the cross.

Catholic League head Bill Donohue called it "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever".

The sculpture, by artist Cosimo Cavallaro, will be displayed from Monday at Manhattan's Lab Gallery.

The Catholic League, which describes itself as the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organisation, also criticised the timing of the exhibition.

"The fact that they chose Holy Week shows this is calculated, and the timing is deliberate," Mr Donohue said.

He called for a boycott of the gallery and the hotel which houses it.

'Overwhelming response'

The gallery's creative director, Matt Semler, said the gallery was considering its options in the wake of angry e-mails and telephone calls.

"We're obviously surprised by the overwhelming response and offence people have taken," he said. "We are certainly in the process of trying to figure out what we're going to do next."

Mr Semler said the timing of the exhibition was coincidental.

Mr Cavallaro, the Canadian-born artist, is known for using food ingredients in his art, on one occasion painting a hotel room in mozzarella cheese.

He used 200 pounds (90 kg) of chocolate to make the sculpture which, unusually, depicts Jesus without a loincloth.

Angels and Eunuchs in the NYT

Disfiguring Treatment? No, It Was Healing

Disfiguring Treatment? No, It Was Healing
By RICHARD WASSERSUG

Published: March 27, 2007

Correction Appended

My daughter and I were talking about outing oneself — the act of disclosing one’s inner identity. The discussion was not purely academic.

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ND/Roger Viollet/Getty Images

“Dad, when most people out themselves, they open the closet door and just come out,” she said. “You, Dad, you went through the wall.”

I had just told my daughter that I was a eunuch.

It all started with a diagnosis of prostate cancer in 1998, when I was 52. Two years later, after failed surgery and radiation, I started hormonal therapy. This meant taking chemicals that slow the growth of prostate cancer cells by depriving them of androgen — in effect, castrating the patient.

Chemical castration is the common treatment for advanced prostate cancer, and more than 250,000 American men are taking these drugs. But few people know of any men taking them, simply because we hide. It is shameful to be castrated.

My initial response to the therapy was typical. My mood plummeted along with my testosterone level. Hair vanished from my arms and legs. Muscle disappeared, fat appeared. My memory suffered. Not only was I now more likely to lose my car keys, I occasionally couldn’t remember where I left the car.

“Eunuch” simply means a castrated man. Given the pervasive stereotype of eunuchs as ineffective wimps, it is no surprise that men dread this label. I became curious about whether the stereotype was true, and how eunuchs functioned in the past.

The first thing I discovered was that eunuchs were anything but mindless, cowardly automatons. There were philosophers (Abelard, Origen of Alexandria), saints (Ignatius), military leaders (Cheng Ho, Narses) and even assassins. They were the chamberlains, diplomats and senior government officials in the major long-lasting, dynastic governments across Asia for 3,000 years. Furthermore, descriptions of eunuchs’ physique and psychology mirrored many of the anatomical and emotional changes I experienced.

Then I discovered the classicists’ hypothesis that the eunuchs of antiquity were models for our depiction of angels. God is thought to surround himself with angels as advisers and emissaries, who are identical in appearance to males castrated before puberty: tall, beardless, nonsexual beings with voices like the legendary castrati.

It appears that from the Judeo-Christian standpoint, the occupants of heaven were exalted eunuchs. In turn, earthly rulers aspired to reach this divine ideal. In “The Perfect Servant” (University of Chicago, 2003), Kathryn M. Ringrose notes that by the 10th century the Byzantine court was “perceived to be an earthly replica of the court of heaven where the emperor functioned as Christ’s representative on earth and was attended by an ‘angelic’ corps of eunuchs.”

This eunuch-angel connection has helped me understand and adapt to the side effects of androgen deprivation. When I was stoked up on testosterone in the old days, for example, I would obsess about exacting revenge on those who offended me. Now I see the foolishness in such macho fury. Rather than trying to undo others, I can now willfully exercise restraint. It’s not that I’m never pugnacious anymore, for I’m no perfect angel, but I realize it’s better to maintain a higher mission than fight petty battles.

I don’t recall crying much as an adult, but since my castration I’ll weep while watching Mothers Against Drunk Driving commercials. At first, I feared that my tears would be perceived as maudlin self-pity. But the truth is that I’ve become more sensitive to the trials and tribulations of others. I am thus no longer embarrassed by my tears. I consider them humanizing, just as they are for angels. The link to my chemical castration is obvious; testosterone fuels aggression but suppresses empathy and the ability to cry.

Understanding angel (and eunuch) psychology has even helped me overcome the cognitive side effects of hormonal therapy. Angels may be omnipotent, but they undertake just one task at a time. According to the Talmud, they are not permitted to attempt more. Biblical angels blessed, cursed, relayed messages and even killed, but they were never on two missions at once. It seems that thousands of years ago it was already recognized that androgen deprivation makes multitasking difficult — but doesn’t prevent one from accomplishing a single task well. This realization has helped me maintain a busy, productive academic life.

I still have a beard and sing bass: androgen deprivation in adulthood doesn’t change those male features. Singing in a group never appealed to me before my castration, because it offered little opportunity for individual advancement. But recently I joined a choir, where I now enjoy the richness of the collective sound born of collaboration — and how much I’ve gained by accepting how much I’ve changed.

Angels cry. So do I. They also sing, and so do I.

Dr. Richard Wassersug is a professor of anatomy and neurobiology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Correction: March 28, 2007

Because of an editing error, the byline on an essay in Science Times yesterday about hormonal treatment for prostate cancer referred incorrectly to the writer, Richard Wassersug. He is not an M.D.

Religion and Literature at the MMLA

The call for the 2007 Religion and Literature session of the Midwest Modern Language Association follows. Interested parties please respond with short (250 word) proposals and contact information.

Spiritual Anarchists and Sacred Troublemakers: (Auto)Biographies of the Saints as Subversive Discourses.

The lives of exemplary religious figures can exert a disruptive effect on accepted canons of religious literature. While accounts of the lives of saints and other religious virtuosi eventually play a central role in the lives of ordinary practitioners, these same exemplary figures often stand in opposition to authoritative religious and cultural institutions of their times. Attempts to bring these figures into the fold of orthodoxy typically involves an elision of the more seditious aspects of saintly lives. This session seeks papers that address the subversive elements that reside in the (auto)biographies of saintly personages. The organizers are particularly interested to address the topic from multiple religious traditions; papers addressing figures outside the Judeo-Christian tradition are especially, though not exclusively, invited.