FAQs

1.What is your name? 

Naming?  Such a colonizing effort, eh?!  Robyn is the name that folks call me.  I have a variety of “nicknames” but I most commonly am called Robyn.  However, I did assume the family name that was once my birth mother’s:  Espinoza.  It was an attempt to combine the “anglo” and indo-Mexican families of origin.  So, professionally I am known as Henderson-Espinoza and I publish under this name.

2.  Why blog? 

I have been blogging for many years, mostly about culture and religion, theology and ethics.  But, as of recent, I am streamlining my more academic and political writings in an effort to have a more focussed and intentional blog. 

Since I began blogging, I have always kept my blogs intentional.  I was intentional about using a medium for the public to access high theory.  So, in the beginning I was blogging about systematic theology and including culture and the process of public/civil religion in my posts, but now I am writing in a more interdisciplinary fashion utilizing the social sciences and humanities, alongside theology & ethics, as my theoretical framework to speak about:  migration, identity, memory, violence, narrative, feminism, and “queer” concerns. 

In short, I blog because I have the distinct sense that it is important to use every medium to democratize and furthermore socialize ideas.  It is my hope that what I write is not just a similation of life [i.e. virtual reality]; rather, I’m hopeful that what is written on this site provides a means for people to start talking to one another in a meaningful and intentional way.  I blog to create talking points and points of departure!

3.  Why Anthropology–why not Theology? Or, what about Theological Anthropology?

Yes!  As I began to narrow down a topic for my master’s thesis, I became very interested in theological anthropology.  I think the very thing that brought me to theology was the exact “thing” leading to my discovery of anthroplogy:  humanity, social systems, relational dynamics, and ethics. 

I appreciate the opportunity to look, critically, at social and complex systems and the ways in which people are socialized to make decisions.  So, whereas the Doctrine of the Trininity and Ecclesiology were of certain importantce while completing two theology degrees, gender, sexuality, borders, violence and narratives all emerged as a result of my pursuit of theology and anthropology. 

I found myself drawn to both the social sciences & theological ethics and there became a desire to pursue doctoral work in anthropology; othwerwise known as being trained as an anthropologist.  But, the “why” of anthropology is the same reason as the “why” of theology: something stirred my heart to pursue the complex and oftentimes unintelligible things of life.

However, when I consider the passions of my heart and what stirs my heart, it is the mystical side of life; the things and problems that sometimes have NO answers. I want to live the questions, per se. So, pursuing a doctoral degree in Anthropology is NOT the best route for me.  I am, after all, a nomad!  After some discerning hermeneutical spiraling, I have returned to the questions of theology as my primary hermeneutical framework [as if I ever left it?]!

I never relenquised the identity of theologian, and yet couldn’t quite solely commit to the identity of anthropologist. I could, however, identify as a theological anthropologist and/or social feminist ethicist. I will forever be identified as a theologian, I’m sure. There’s something about the hope of theology and the complexity of it all that propels me to keep on doing the work of the theologian, whether that is in the Church, the Academy, here in the AGs office, on the Bike, with friends, or wherever. 

4.  Why did you get rid of baptistnomad.com?

I didn’t “get rid” of baptistnomad dot com.  Its still there, but that site served a very particular purpose and had a very particular audience.  Wanting to join the larger political, gender, and “queer” blogs, I decided that a more academic site was best. 

The iRobyn site has a larger scope than the baptistnomad site did.  Firstly, its not a religion or theology blog or a site where spiritual formation/development is discussed.  The baptistnomad site for some 5 or 6 years focussed solely on theological development and feminist theology, and had a very particular following.  Secondly, similar to the baptistnomad blog, the iRobyn site is a site that focusses upon complex issues; however, it is a blog whose primary scope is investigating and understanding social and complex systems.  The blog is a medium of translating high critical theory to the public in an intelligible manner.  The iRobyn site is about translating theory into life–bringing the Frankfurt School and Jean Baudriallard and Foucault to the eyes and ears of those who read and listen and have an interest in living life and traversing or spiraling in a sort of nomadic way!

5.  What are you really–a theologian or what?

To use the social labels and categories of my current context, I am: queer, a person of color/less, feminist, mestiza migrant, or Nomadic Mestiza.  Additionally, I identify with French philosopher and sociologist Jean Baudrillard when, during an interview, a reporter asked:  “Who are you?  What are you”  Baudrillard replied:  “What I am, I don’t know. I am the simulacrum of myself.”