Things to do at ETS/IBR/SBL

Okay, this is my annual in-house roast of theologians and biblical scholars and the November conferences they attend in the USA.

If you have no sense of humor, are easily offended, or are very committed to the political right or political left, then stop reading at this point! Seriously, nothing good after this point happens for you.

Things to do at the Evangelical Theological Society

Don’t miss out on Russell Moore’s paper: “Make Mike Bird Speaker of the House: Four Reasons Why We Could Do Worse!”

Wear a T-Shirt saying, “Life Begins at Insurrection.”

Attend the panel on “Diversifying Evangelical Witness” featuring four bald, bearded, white men wearing the same suit.

Vote Carmen Imes for ETS President. We could Do Worse!

If you see Mike Bird, give him some almond m-n-m’s, they are his favourite.

If you see Michael Johnson, give him Mike Bird’s book Evangelical Theology, because “evangelical” plays in more than one key.

Attend Kevin De Young’s plenary on “Patriarchy with Power Rangers,” about teaching kids male authority with rainbow-colored action figures.

If you see a woman with a man, ask the man, “So where does your wife teach?”

If you see Christian Nationalist Stephen Wolfe, shake his hand and whisper, “Hail Hydra.”

Get a copy of Mike Bird’s A Bird’s-Eye View of Luke and Acts.

Go to the CBMW stall and ask if they have a range of leggings for women endorsed by Owen Strachan.

Attend the ETS banquet at Cracker Barrell (there is something quintessentially American about eating food with farm equipment dangling two feet above your head).

Things to do at the Society of Biblical Literature

Attend the plenary session on, “Textual Twerking: An Emo-Eco-Maoist Reading of Scribal Activity in Leviticus in Conversation with Oprah and Derrida.”

Ask Mike Bird to autograph your Matthew Henry commentary and offer to buy him a coffee … then run for your life!

If you see a Jewish scholar, ask them if they are safe from Harvard and Yale Grad students! Actually, this one is sadly serious.

If you see an Arab scholar, ask them if they are safe from, well, everyone else. Again, also sadly serious.

Go to the Brill and De Gruyter booth and take the oath of loyalty to publishing capitalism.

Remember me on 18 November, it is my birthday! Suggested gift ideas are: Cab Sav wine, almond m-n-ms, spicey takis, and an autographed copy of Beth Moore’s My Knotted Up Life.

Go to the panel discussion by four scholars who have never had to fill out a Medicaid form and grew up with wealthy parents in the northeast on “It’s Only Anti-Semitism When White Trash Do it: A Marxist-Davos Perspective on Liquidating the Rural Poor of Kentucky Using Techniques from the Qumran War Scroll.”

Be sure to attend “Is There Hope for Evangelicalism” with Aimee Byrd, Kristin du Mez, Beth Allison Barr, and Moi. This will be the # 1 event of the conference festivities.

Get a copy of Mike Bird’s A Bird’s-Eye View of Luke and Acts.

Attend the SBL Banquet at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Only for tenured faculty and deans of diversificationness, de-colonizing trailer parks, and regulating student Halloween costumes. Untenured and adjunct faculty will be offered instead food stamps to eat at Arby’s, or at least, food out of the dumpster behind Arby’s. But only if they agree to donate their lungs and liver to university donors with smoking and drinking problems.

Anyone not amused or not a little offended, don’t worry, I’ll be playing all week in San Antonio, and I promise to get to you shortly.