Today is my college’s Commencement Day. I’ve been to more than thirty college graduation events, including the three when I got to walk across the stage and receive my degree. I have heard many Commencement addresses; the best was a dozen years or so ago from Tim Russert, while there is strong competition among several speakers for the worst. I will probably never have the chance to give a Commencement address myself–if I did, I would say something like this.... Read more
One of my prized possessions, purchased when Jeanne and I on vacation last June in Scotland, is a Harris Tweed wool cap. I bought it in a small shop in Oban, a beautiful port on the west coast of Scotland that is the gateway to the Hebrides islands (where they make Islay scotch, the real reason we went to Scotland in the first place). I wear this cap to work frequently, and am pleased to report that I have managed... Read more
Last week, a Christianity Today article reported that “Half of Americans Say Evangelicals are Discriminated Against.” www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/april/evangelicals-face-discrimination-pew-research-antisemitism.html Sigh. I always appreciate being reminded that evangelical Christians believe that they are the most persecuted majority in history, constituted by people who can’t tell the difference between disagreement and discrimination. What evangelical Christians actually are is a prime example of how faith can turn into defensive tribalism. This is something that one of my favorite Christian apologists, Marilynne Robinson, is acutely attuned to. The recently... Read more
I once learned something interesting about giraffes from one of my colleagues. He was lecturing on Roman art and architecture; when discussing the Coliseum, he mentioned that Roman audiences loved to watch novelty battles—between a woman and a dwarf, or a dog and a porcupine for instance. The voracious Roman appetite for more and more exotic beasts and contests produced a variety of combatants from all corners of the empire, including elephants, apes, the great cats, and rhinoceroses. And giraffes.... Read more
There is no greatness where there is no goodness, simplicity, or truth Leo Tolstoy Although Jeanne and I have lived in our house since 1996, there has never been a time when some portion of the house hasn’t been under revision, ranging in seriousness from furniture arrangement through a new coat of paint to knocking down walls and starting over again. Our largest project, transforming the basement into livable space, was a three-year process that turned out to be about ten times... Read more
One of the stories that was emphasized regularly in the Baptist Sunday school of my youth was Jesus’s apparent love of children from Matthew’s gospel. Matthew provides a couple of vignettes in back-to-back chapters that often get conflated. In response to the ubiquitous, “adult” questions about who is going to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus uses a kid for a “show-and-tell” moment. Unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter... Read more
As millions of others, I was saddened by the devastating news yesterday of the death of Rachel Held Evans. I am a relative latecomer to her work, but it has had a significant impact on me over the past couple of years. In honor of her brilliant writing and beautiful life, I offer the following essay from a year and a half ago, inspired by reading her books. Discovering a new author is one of my favorite things–it frequently happens... Read more
During the last seminar of the semester in one of my classes this week, my students and I had a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation about why people (including all of the students present) strongly believe some version of “everything happens for a reason” to be true. Our conversation took me back to various aspects of my youth. I grew up in the world of evangelical Christianity, and have spent much of my adult life grappling with it, ultimately embracing and being... Read more
According to the reading from John’s gospel at church a couple of days ago, one of the first things Jesus did when he appeared post-resurrection to the disciples (minus Thomas) was to breathe on them and say “receive the Holy Spirit.” Christians traditionally have imagined the Holy Spirit as a dove because the accounts of Jesus’ baptism in all four Gospels include a dove descending. We have mourning doves in my neighborhood—I hear them cooing at me frequently, as they... Read more
The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty Anne Lamott In the lectionary, the Second Sunday of Easter is “Doubting Thomas Sunday.” I was taught as a young Baptist kid to consider Thomas as a loser because he would not believe reports of Jesus’ resurrection until he had seen and handled the man himself. But over the years, Thomas has become one of my spiritual heroes, and doubt (along with irreverence) has become my favorite virtue. Here’s why. Michel de... Read more
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