The Hermenuetic of Being a Karen

Thinking about how we read books and the world

The closest thing academics get to summer camp are conferences, and this week I’ve been to two. The first was the annual meeting for the Society for the Study of Theology. It is, as the title indicates, the annualconference in the UK for the study of theology. Professors and PhD students and independent scholars alike rock up ready to give presentations on their research, yes, but also (primarily) to go to the crumby university pub afterward, to gleefully argue over theological minutiae, to moan about some aspect of the conference you’re unhappy with, and to exchange industry gossip about everything from who is going for which jobs to what couples are forming to what departments are closing. The UK is small enough (and the field of theology even more so) that this parochial bonding is possible, enjoyable, and even (I’d suggest) important. I always look forward to the SST.

This year, the conference theme was “Flesh and Blood” theologies. What resulted were two main streams of research papers– one that examined the rather technical aspects of Chalcedonianism (the idea, established by the council of Chalcedon in 451 that Jesus Christ has two natures, fully divine and fully human, while remaining as one unified person or hypostasis), and then a diversity of more contextual or personal papers emphasizing the importance of embodiment. Oddly, the latter took a dark turn. With a few exceptions (I enjoyed a paper on the theological implications of Mary’s pregnancy with Jesus) there was a lot of talk of suffering, blood, injustice, etc. A scholar I talked to after the conference wryly noted the emphasis on suffering: “flesh and blood also dances!”

Given this somber mood, I was refreshed by one presentation about a theology of food. The author spoke about the way that that food provides a place of recognition and belonging for people finding their home in a new country, and he focused on Cantonese food in Hong Kong migrant population in the UK. He explored some ideas from Norman Wirzba’s book Food and Faith: a theology of eating. It was a lovely little paper. He also handed around a tin of lovely, crispy biscuits which I joyfully consumed. They were very tasty. I’m easy to please.

The Q&A, however, was exasperating. One person asked him “It’s nice that you think food provides belonging for people exiled from their homeland, but what about gluten intolerant people for whom eating is a source of anxiety.” And then another said, “What about people who are poor and can only eat at McDonalds and don’t have enough money to prepare their own food” (paraphrase). These questions annoyed me. They profoundly irritated me. First, they didn’t really engage with anything he had said or argued. They were also slightly absurd questions: of all cuisines, Cantonese is more likely than some to be friendly to gluten intolerance— it is not very bread heavy or sauce heavy, and rice is the base carb— so there are a lot of gluten free options! And as to the second guy’s question: I struggle to believe that making one’s own food at home (which is what the speaker was talking about) is more financially friendly than eating fast food. Not to mention that most of the dishes he was talking about were rice dishes! Rice is famously affordable! Furthermore, I find the suggestion that “poor people” only eat McDonalds offensive. And that’s not to mention the disrespect of trying to erase everything personal, thoughtful, and cultural he said about Cantonese cuisine and hospitality by this inane objection.

More than all this, both question-askers reminded me of a sort of attitude which I think pervades our world, but I’ve never quite put my finger on.

This week, I gave it a name: The Hermeneutic of Being a Karen.