Nurturing the Next Generation of Scholars

Richard Newton

Ph.D. student in Critical Comparative Scriptures, Claremont Graduate University
FTE Doctoral Fellow ('10)

LEAVE COMMENTS FOR THIS POST AT BOTTOM OF PAGE

June 12, 2010

What Season Are We In?

“To control the calendar is to control the world,” a history teacher of mine once explained.  My class was studying the Roman Empire and how the Caesars’ despotic doggedness covered geographic expanses and plains of consciousness.  As we transition from month to month, we receive a subtle yet significant reminder of how Caesar’s hand haunts today.  Such a simple form of hegemony often goes unquestioned.

I believe this is my second Fund for Theological Education conference to have located a titular theme in regards to “The Age of Obama.” This suggests that there is something about this season that is provocative. On both occasions the temporal designation remained in the background -- only evoked to discuss the president, in general, or his race, in particular.  But what about the dynamics at play in the geographic expanses and plains of consciousness under the heading of “The Age of Obama?”  What season are we in, and why are we sometimes hesitant to discuss what that season really means?

For me, the answers to both questions are the same: The Age of Obama signifies the tensity of Americanism in contrast to rhetorics of national unity.  In less than a decade, this country has gone from “United We Stand” to legal contestations of the president’s nationality.  The meaning-filled tropes about black and white communities are incarnationally problematized in the embodiment of a bi-racial head of state whose social allegiances have been questioned by both communities.  The sexiness of the “us vs. the terrorists” talk grows more ridiculous as American citizens have perpetrated acts of terror within our borders.  And all of the above moments at least correlate to the most recent set of debates about how brown one can be to rightfully be in this country.  So what season are we in? I say we are in a time whose essence is marked more by difference than by similarity.  The question then becomes, “what do we do about such differences?”