The annual rant is upon us: Thanksgiving is still weeks away, and already the stores are full of Kristmas Krap. (As opposed to Christmas decorations, which are lovely and which show up at the appropriate season.) So a friend and I were talking about the symbols of Christmas, and how they shape the way we think about it. And I confessed, for the umpteenth time, that I just can’t relate to the Baby Jesus. I’m not a mom, never wanted... Read more
By Sybil MacBeth Author, The Season of the Nativity: Confessions of an Advent, Christmas and Epiphany Extremist I cannot remember exactly when it happened, but I think it was in a large high-end mall in Cleveland, Ohio. Decked in a spectacular array of shiny foil, colorful ornaments, and thousands of lights, the mall was filled with focused holiday shoppers. My intent was to be one of them. It was early December and I had not purchased a single gift for... Read more
(see this and more at Patheos.com’s “Public Square”: http://www.patheos.com/Public-Square) “Voting is irrational.” This jarring statement comes from Paul Woodruff, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas in Austin, in his wise book, REVERENCE: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (2002). It’s disturbing, but it might get at the heart of the problem of low voter participation. Thirty-eight million people’s lives will be critically affected by the choices made on November 4 in my state. But only 25.2% of California’s registered voters... Read more
Patheos blogger Christian Piatt is on the road this fall, promoting his new book PostChristian (and hosting Beer & Hymns events wherever he can), so I thought I’d pull out this interview from the archives to introduce you to Christian and his thoughts on PostChristian: What Left, Can We Fix It, Do We Care? Enjoy! To see if Christian’s coming your way soon, check out his speaking schedule here: http://www.christianpiatt.com Read more
There are some Christians who give the Bible godlike homage. It might as well have come floating down from heaven on the wings of angels. Should we ascribe to the Bible divine status? In Nazi Germany a Jewish fugitive fleeing for his life came to a small town. He sought out the house of the Christian pastor, hoping to find refuge. He knocked on the door and when the pastor opened it, he told his story and asked if he... Read more
by Timothy Villareal The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno, California experienced something of an earthquake in October of 2008. A month ahead of the vote on Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex marriage in California – the same Prop 8 that was finally put six feet under by the Supreme Court in 2013 – a Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Geoff Farrow, declared he was gay. Farrow, then 49, was the pastor of the St. Paul Catholic Newman Center in Fresno.... Read more
The sample size might be too small for statistical validity, but I’ll go ahead and offer a data-influenced hypothesis nevertheless. Concept albums are on the rise. Or perhaps we should call them “cover” concept albums, since most of the ones I’m thinking of are a concept, but they are also “covering” an album from the past. Here are the ones I’m listening to right now. You might have heard others. The Bad Plus recently put out a jazz rendition of... Read more
I’ve just recently returned from an exceptionally joyful jaunt to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I learned first-hand the transformative power of play for solving real-world problems such as hunger, violence, racism, and climate change. Late last week, on a beautiful fall day in the sleepy hills of Marin County, the San Franciso Theological Seminary (SFTS) launched its new Center for the Innovation in Ministry with an extraordinary event that brought together Silicon valley gamers and innovators with pastors, church leaders, business leaders and theologians to... Read more
Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan argues in his book, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now, that in the biblical tradition, both Old and New Testaments, two incompatible and contradictory explanations of God’s final victory over the evil and injustice of the world run side by side, often in the same biblical books. One explanation is extermination. It is reflected in the Noachic solution to evil in the world, namely, the complete destruction of the wicked. Crossan writes,... Read more
The Supreme Court has declared corporations to be people, according to its Citizens United decision. And, likewise, in its Hobby Lobby decision, it decided that a company can be exempted from obeying laws that contradict his/her personal religious beliefs. This opens up an exciting opportunity for Christian evangelism! If we are serious about spreading the gospel to everyone, we should invite corporations to church. To this end, let October 19, 2014, be INVITE-A-CORPORATION-TO-CHURCH SUNDAY. Let’s invite BP to church. Let’s... Read more
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