sbl and its "holy huddle"

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Jacques Berlinerblau, (What’s Wrong With the Society of Biblical Literature?) is causing a bit of commotion in the blogosphere. Berlinerblau essentially accuses the SBL of doing a "holy huddle": being too religious, and too removed from the populace. I've got no profound thoughts of my own on this that go beyond what's already been written, so I'll simply point to some of the more extended discussions I've seen around the blogs: Tyler Williams, Stephen Carlson, Loren Rosson, Danny Zacharias, and now Mark Goodacre.

Meanwhile, I'm going to have to do my own huddle over the next few days, finally turning some focused attention to finishing my conference paper. Well, okay, I'll be honest: I need to turn some focused attention to actually writing my conference paper. I promise it will be ready on time. [Crosses fingers behind his back] Really, I do.