Paul J. Griffiths is a very busy man. How busy is he? He is so busy thinking about the triune Lord that he is "thrumming like a tautly triple-woven steel thread." Apparently, when you get thrumming-level busy you have no time for petty distractions like racism.
So when Griffiths, the Warren Chair of Catholic Theology at Duke Divinity School, was invited to attend a Racial Equity Institute that hoped to provide "foundational training in understanding historical and institutional racism," he sent an email exhorting his colleagues to avoid what he confidently predicted would be "intellectually flaccid" event full of "bromides, clichés and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty."
Griffiths cannot be distracted by flaccid stuff like institutional racism because he is preoccupied with hard things like Christian theology. As he explains:
Our mission is to think, read, write and teach about the triune Lord of Christian confession. This is a hard thing. Each of us should be tense with the effort of it, thrumming like a tautly triple-woven steel thread with the work of it, consumed by the fire of it, ever eager for more of it. We have neither time nor resources to waste.Ok.
