Free Today!
In honor of Ash Wednesday, I have discounted the cost of my book, A Better Atonement: Beyond the Depraved Doctrine of Original Sin
And, in other Free news, there’s now a free copy of my app, Ordain Thyself. Download it today!
A Better Atonement — FREE TODAY ONLY
February 13, 2013 By 6 Comments
The Last Pope Who Quit
February 11, 2013 By 3 Comments
The current pope who’s quitting (Benedict XVI) visits the tomb of the last pope who quit (Celestine V) in April, 2009.
Pope Celestine V, aka Peter Morrone, quit in 1294. He was the only pope, prior to Benedict XVI, to outright quit. (Gregory XII resigned in 1415 to end a schism, amid a debate about popes and anti-popes.
Well, Celestine V was immortalized in an excellent book by Jon Sweeney a couple years ago, The Pope Who Quit: A True Medieval Tale of Mystery, Death, and Salvation
At the close of the tumultuous Middle Ages, there lived a man who seemed destined from birth to save the world. His name was Peter Morrone, a hermit, a founder of a religious order, and, depending on whom you talk to, a reformer, an instigator, a prophet, a coward, a saint, and possibly the victim of murder. A stroke of fate would, practically overnight, transform this humble servant of God into the most powerful man in the Catholic Church. Half a year later, he would be the only pope in history to abdicate the chair of St. Peter, an act that nearly brought the papacy to its knees. What led him to make that decision and what happened afterward would be shrouded in mystery for centuries. The Pope Who Quit pulls back the veil of secrecy on this dramatic time in history and showcases a story that involves deadly dealings, apocalyptic maneuverings, and papal intrigue.
If you’re a church history nerd like me, pick it up.
At Least God’s Not Dead
February 9, 2013 By 14 Comments
Jonathan Fitzgerald is one of my favorite bloggers. When you read his posts at Patrol, it’s like you can see him leaving evangelicalism before your very eyes. And now he’s written a book, Not Your Mother’s Morals: How the New Sincerity is Changing Pop Culture for the Better. I endorsed it, cuz it’s good. You should buy it, and read it. Just to give you a taste, here’s an excerpt:
I realized just how universal the whole “spiritual, but not religious” thing had become recently while helping a friend fill out a Match.com profile. When it came time define religion, all the old standards were there, but beneath those, the final option was “spiritual, but not religious.” We considered for a few minutes, and she ultimately decided to check the box. “I can work with that,” she joked. [Read more...]
Get to Know the Nones
January 17, 2013 By 5 Comments
Elizabeth Drescher has a list of five books that we should read if we want to understand the (non-)religion of the nones. Here’s one:
Courtney Bender, The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
Bender extends the work of Albanese, offering an ethnographic exploration of self-identified metaphysical practitioners as their apparently eclectic, unique, and personal spiritualities resist, engage, resource, and in many ways re-present the historical, scientific, philosophical, and theological narratives that have swirled about what is arguably the geographical and historical center of the American metaphysical tradition: Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In the process, she offers a richly contextualized network map of local religious history and contemporary practice that shows how deeply entangled “new,” “idiosyncratic” spiritualities are with the traditions of religious, scientific, and other cultural institutions. Bender also powerfully challenges common popular and scholarly distinctions between religion as institutionalized practice and spirituality as individualized practice. Bender’s recent SSRC Working Paper with Omar Roberts, Mapping the Field: Why and How to Study Spirituality, productively continues this conversation in the light of contemporary secularism and its political implications.
See the rest of the list: Five Must-Reads on the “Nones”: A Tipping Point in American Religion and Spirituality | (A)theologies | Religion Dispatches.
Gigliogate and Evangelical Identity
January 16, 2013 By 27 Comments
Fred makes the salient point that Gigliogate and the Chik-fil-A fustercluck are basically the same. Evangelicals wade into the public square, air our their opinion on a social issue, take a beating in said public square, and then crawl back into their holes, wailing that they’ve been discriminated against.
Well, Christian Smith predicted all of this.
Smith did all of us who follow American evangelicalism a great service with his 1998 book, American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Therein, he described how evangelicals have developed a “sub-cultural identity,” wherein they told themselves a story about their own position as an embattled minority, even as they became the most powerful bloc in our society.
Peter Rollins Will (Not) Challenge Your Faith
January 7, 2013 By 8 Comments
Peter Rollins’s new book has dropped. Here’s how my endorsement reads on Amazon:
“Caveat emptor. Let the reader, the Christian, the skeptic beware, for with The Idolatry of God, Peter Rollins has taken his theological program of turning everything we believe upside down to the next level. Not content to simply subvert how we believe, Rollins now turns his attention to what we believe. If you don’t want your faith challenged, don’t read this book.” (Tony Jones, author of A Better Atonement )
But here’s how it reads on the back of the actual book:
So, You’ve Got an Amazon Gift Card Burning a Hole in Your Pocket…
December 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
…Well, here’s some inspiration to put it to good use:
Theoblogy Book of the Year
December 26, 2012 By 12 Comments
In the past, I’ve awarded a Book of the Year award, usually to the best book that I’ve read, regardless of the relevance to Theoblogy readers. The 2011 winner is one example. In 2008, on the other hand, I picked a book that should be of enormous interest to you who read this blog.
I’ve read some great books this year. None has affected my day-to-day life more than 52 Loaves
More on topic for this blog is Brian McLaren’s Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World
And now, for the 2012 Theoblogy Book of the Year:
Announcing Some Christmas Winners!
December 24, 2012 By 6 Comments
Happy Christmas Eve, everyone. We’ve got some Theoblogy housekeeping to do today, and give away some free stuff.
Winners of the Theoblogy T-Shirts:
If you’re one of these, please email me through my website with your mailing address and your t-shirt size, and I’ll get the shirt out to you.
And now, an even bigger giveaway!
I’ve got 25 copies of the book Holy Nomad: The Rugged Road to Joy
Write a Theological Limerick, Win Theological Trading Cards
December 19, 2012 By 98 Comments
One of the great products to come out this year — at least for theological geeks like me and you — is the set of Theologian Trading Cards by Norman Jeune. Seriously, if you’ve got a seminary student in your life, someone who can spell “Schleiermacher,” this is a great holiday gift.
Zondervan has proffered three sets of the cards to Theoblogy to give out to readers, and each set includes a signed card! You could win a card signed by… [Read more...]
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