AKMA’s Random Thoughts

If It’s Friday, This Must Be SCE

This morning I’m off to downtown Chicago for a meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics to a session on an article of mine from a couple of years ago. At first, I thought this was one of SCE’s “Breakfast With an Author” gigs, which seemed pretty sweet since I reckoned I’d get a hotel breakfast out of the deal. It runs out that this session takes place in the regular morning slot from nine to eleven-thirty, so I get no breakfast, and instead of constituting a conversational free-for-all only loosely associated with my article (that is: “the guy who wrote it is swilling coffee and pontificating down at the far end of the table”), I’m expected to give a presentation about the article, after which a formal group of ethicists will tell me what they think of it (more like: “Who told you that you had anything useful to say about ethics, Bible Boy?”) — not the casual, caloric engagement I had originally anticipated.

But I cobbled together some reflections to wrap around a summary of the published paper (which I’m confident that many of the attendees — assuming enough people attend that one can use the word “many” in conjunction with the group — won’ have read). Margaret, the card-carrying theological ethicist in the family, will spend the weekend downtown, having a wild time with other Christian ethicists. I’ll saunter home after my session and get back to work.