This summer I went to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery in London for the first time. I know, as many times as I have been to London, it is shameful that this is the first time I went. I went to see Shakespeare, of course, and all the wives of Henry VIII in the National Portrait Gallery. But before wandering down the aisle of Tudor faces, I stopped first into the National Gallery and visited a Rembrandt exhibit.... Read more
When did Christian worship services start to include a brief children's sermon? Chris does some digging... Read more
The New York Times recently published a wonderful article entitled A Fragile Biblical Text Gets a Virtual Read, concerning the application of modern digital technology to reading an ancient Egyptian codex that includes the Book of Acts. The article itself is fascinating and informative, and the methodologies described are enormously promising. But I do have to quibble with its author, Nicholas Wade, for one remark. Wade writes in passing, “There was a profusion of gospels and other writings in the... Read more
Alex Stone startled in a recent New York Times op-ed, “Is Your Child Lying to You? That’s Good.” Is he right? Read more
The Christmas readings in our church featured the magnificent Prologue to John’s Gospel, about the Light, and how “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1.5 RSV, also NIV) or alternatively, “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (KJV). Overcome and comprehended – aren’t those radically different words? Is one wrong? Why do we have such different translations? Actually, both are correct in their way, and the process of determining... Read more
The story of evangelicals' attempt to launch an Ivy League-quality research university in the 1950s Read more
Chris considers the role of religion in the life of Ulysses S. Grant, the first U.S. president with strong connections to Methodism. Read more
Dorothy Sayers once quipped that attempting to grasp Dante’s Divine Comedy only from reading the Inferno would be like understanding Paris only through its sewer system. Unfortunately, if students are assigned any Dante in high school or college, it is usually the Inferno, possibly some bits of the Purgatorio, and rarely ever the Paradiso. This is a pity for Dante’s reserves some of his richest insights for the Paradiso, which I have taught for the first time in an upper-level,... Read more
My blogs normally address some kind of religious issue, and this one, strictly speaking, does not. What I do want to discuss, though, unquestionably has massive implications for ethics as much as politics. How exactly are we going to respond to the likely prospect of international crisis within the next couple of years, when that crisis stands an excellent chance of evolving into military conflict? How will we respond to the threat of war? How should we? Looking around the... Read more
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