Spencer Burke has an article “From the Third Floor of the Garage” at The Center for Progressive Christianity website. It introduces what I think is in fact an insightful term, “spiritual McCarthyism”. Of course, the term relates to an era in history that is not part of the experience of many of us, but for those who know what it means, the image is vivid. Here’s a sample: Spiritual McCarthyism…encourages people to orchestrate their lives to avoid censure and minimize... Read more

Kenneth Hynek has a fairly comprehensive treatment of the finale of Battlestar Galactica and about the series as a whole. It includes, among other things, a recollection of a discussion he and I had about the theology of the series, once upon a time. Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Progression of Faith has video interviews in which two New Testament scholars dare to go where BSG feared to tread… Read more

How can one encapsulate in a blog post the finale that brought to an end one of the most fascinating shows on television in recent years? A show that took a show from a couple of decades earlier and reinvented it rather than simply remaking it? [That in itself should have made us think twice about the sense in which “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again”]. A show that was discussed at the United Nations... Read more

Here’s a news gem from Michael Zimmerman of the Clergy Letter Project (and of Butler University, I might add) that is well worth sharing: This item falls well within the dictionary’s definition of hypocrisy! Ken Ham, the head of Answers in Genesis, the group that built the $27 million Creation Museum-cum-theme-park in Kentucky, has recently railed against the BBC for “ambushing” a member of his staff. As you’ll see if you read the link, Ham claims that Jason Lisle was... Read more

Today in my Sunday school class, we continued our discussion of homosexuality. Today’s class began by focusing on the section of Leviticus that includes its two mentions of the prohibition against “lying with men the lyings of women”, usually understood to prohibit same-sex male intercourse. It was crucial to begin by pointing out that some of the things in this part of Leviticus we do not consider necessary. And in spite of slogans that affirm belief in the whole Bible,... Read more

LOST is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a hatch built by the Dharma Initiative. But if we go back and try to remember watching, wondering and speculating during season one, we have a nice illustration of what is involved in learning and discovery, and what a key hurdle to education can be. Imagine someone (you may actually know such a person) who formulated what they thought was the “definitive LOST theory” during the first season. Once the... Read more

I watched the movie Eagle Eye, and since it has enjoyable twists and surprises I won’t say anything much about the details of the plot. I will, however, note the irony (as a resident of Indianapolis) that they set some scenes in Indianapolis, and those scenes look nothing like Indianapolis. Not one of the scenes is in a place that looks like anywhere in Indianapolis or its vicinity. What makes this ironic? A key theme in the movie (this isn’t... Read more

Let’s list all the possible explanations for the numbers playing while Ajira flight 316 was landing in the LOST episode “Namaste”. I’ll then suggest one is more plausible than the rest. 1) The flash that took away most of the returning Oceanic Six caused the plane to pass through/touch/hear 1977. This is unlikely because we hear the numbers after the flash when the plane seems to be solidly in one time. 2) Someone has started the broadcast again. 3) There... Read more

[SPOILERS AHEAD] Tonight’s episode of LOST is pulling a closer and closer to the heart of a tangled knot of interconnected time-loops. Ben has met Sayid for the first time, but because of what has happened since Sayid first met Ben in the future, Sayid will now react to him a certain way in the past. The Oceanic survivors are in the Dharma Initiative, and presumably Hurley will fill in the requisition for the ranch dressing he’ll eat later. And... Read more

I’ve been reading mainly the second chapter of the recent book by Craig Evans and Tom Wright, Jesus, the Final Days: What Really Happened. One chapter each is devoted to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. While the volume is not without its shortcomings, I am appreciateive of Evans’ articulation of a persuasive argument for the likelihood of Jesus having been buried (with appropriate citation of evidence for the importance of burial in the Judaism of this time), and... Read more