Seeking the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" regarding the academic study of religion and theology? Look no further at the job offerings. You might want to pour a good, strong drink before you do.
Here, as of April 17, 2019, were some campus ministry positions open:
Notice: lots of Catholic institutions listed. Also, an Ivy League, a Lutheran college, and a couple west-coast private, non-affiliated institutions.
So far so good. There's a job market, which means there's a demand.
Google will eliminate its Google + social media platform on April 2, 2019.
The under-used platform never came close to competing with Facebook as a social media to MySpace (which, interestingly enough, still survives, albeit known only when it inadvertently erases almost a decade of material). Google + became something of a joke as Facebook, then Twitter, then Instagram, then SnapChat rocketed in popularity.
source:
searchengineland.com
No, for everything Google has done right, Google + faltered.
Since it's going away forever, though, a certain celebration seems in order. Google + might have been awkward and largely unknown, but it was not without its own virtues. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, you could participate in different degrees in a wide variety of online groups. Obviously, religion is one example. As this blog started in 2012, I found several, not just one, audiences on Google+. Many of the 2012-2015 posts appeared simultaneously on the "Catholic Blogs," "Roman Catholics," "Living the Catholic Faith," and occasionally "Theology of the Body" groups. The G+ Catholic Blogs even had a Twitter handle (no longer active). On any given day posts on these groups might range from the overly wordy and wonky like my own to mainstream/leaning conservative spirituality to frankly sympathetic sedevacantism or equally unapologetic left-wing beads-n-sandals Catholics. And those were just the Catholics. There were evangelical Protestants of all sorts, Hindus, Buddhists, progressive politics, and conservatives who revered Steve Bannon. Also, unlike the more popular platforms, it seemed easier to connect with earnest international Catholic participants. Google + seemed to be a gateway platform where many gained their sea legs before moving to the more popular ones.
Perhaps because so few comparatively used the platform, Google + was never monitored as Facebook and Twitter justifiably have been. At any rate, a certain diversity of voices existed among Catholic use of Google +, much like what exists on #CatholicTwitter today.
On Feb. 27, 1601, three Catholics were executed at Tyburn for the crimes of priesthood (i.e., being a Catholic priest) and harboring priests. Anne Line, a convert from Puritanism and found guilty of hosting one priest, was executed by hanging. Then, one by one, the priests died in a far more horrible manner.
I'll be honest: the past several months have not been easy. Problems at all levels--professional, personal, national, ecclesial--have proliferated and intensified. Yet the final, awful culmination of these problems always seems forestalled. We can see a horrendous conclusion looming, yet we are forced into being spectators to our own demise.
Yes, I know: The Book of Job
But anybody who reads this blog probably knows the vacuity of that answer, or at least the superficial use thereof. Job, despite what James 1:7 says, is not patient. I, like many who have taught an undergraduate course on the Bible, have squelched uncountable student flare-ups over this denial.
Job serves a vital purpose by demonstrating that, contra facile readings, this complete annihilation of one's selfhood really sucks. This is especially true when your so-called 'friends' stand by nagging and not helping. And it should be laughable that stating that so requires so much language. Job's story, foreshadowing the Resurrection, concludes with the mystery that the suffering is not the final word. Our earthly existence might end in less-than-desirable circumstances, but that end is not *the* end. God's mystery unfathomably includes more than mere mortals can grasp. That is the point of Job--when God speaks out of the whirlwind, not Job enjoys material restitution.
So, yes, sometimes life does suck, but then there are other times when it's quite spectacular. THAT is life--the ebb and flow.
But not when you're apparently waiting in line at Tyburn. Lately it has not been the horrific experience itself but rather the dread anticipation knowing what is unavoidable. Tom Petty sings that "the waiting is the hardest part." Job and Tyburn substantiate this, but there's no way a nifty pop song summarizes such incipient agony.
