ConNiPtioNs

Socially Acceptable Table Talk

I had to go to a friend's wedding over the weekend. I was seated at the academic table with a retired professor and his wife, a recent PhD who is starting his first job in the fall and his wife (a grduate student), and a grad student in English who is finishing his masters thesis and getting out of academia.

The retired professor and his wife are great and I have known them for several years. We talked about baseball and department politics and other mutual interests. None of us knew the grad student so we asked him about his work. He said that he is studying rhetoric in contemporary christian "literature." Well, I had to explore that a bit.

I asked him about the themes and writers and he said that he tries to stay away from writers that are political or write about political topics. He went on to say that there are some in reaction to feminism and mentioned something about Promise Keepers and that one of the writers he is studying is James Dobson. My reaction: "WHATTTTT????? Are you an idiot?" Okay, I didn't really say that, but I wanted to.

Is this guy serious? He was telling me how he is only studying non-political writing and then brings up feminism, Promise Keepers, and James Dobson. How much more political can you get? I had to bite my tongue, I wanted to get into it with this guy but I decided to just smile and nod.