What do you do when you find out the theologian you respected is kind of slimy?
It happens all the time: I’m reading a beautiful piece of theology, and while the thinker is waxing on elegantly about God and man, he barrels in on the subject of women or Jewish people, and suddenly I’m hit by a barrage of nastiness.
Or, I'll look up to a living theologian, and then find out how he invited an intern on a vacation without his spouse or cohersed a student back to his hotel room at a conference. When you start listening to women academics in religious fields, you find out that it can often be difficult to make it through a Ph. D. without some sort of unwanted sexual tension.
I’m observing from an outsider, of course, but I wonder why harassment so prevalent. Is it the meeting of minds that's exciting and stimulating? Is it a field that’s not used to women so men don’t quite know how to act? Is the bad behavior as inherent in theology as it is in philosophy? Is it the power arousal that one gets when he’s got so much sway over another person’s career? Is it just sexism, manipulation and sliminess?
