Thanks to the caravan of refugees moving north, President Trump’s choice to stoke up fears about their impending “invasion” in the days before Tuesday’s midterm elections, and the results of those elections, “Who is my neighbor?” continues to be on my mind as it has been for my last two posts. Just to be clear–any apparent political agenda accompanying what I say below is simply an unintended (but real) result of my understanding of my commitment to my Christian faith.... Read more
If everybody is your neighbor, then nobody is. Rod Dreher Next semester, a colleague and good friend from the history department and I will be co-teaching an interdisciplinary colloquium for the fourth time in the past six years. The colloquium is “‘Love Never Fails’: Grace, Truth and Freedom in the Nazi Era,” a course that is one of my top two or three favorite courses that I have taught in my three decades in the college classroom. On this midterm... Read more
A couple of months ago, Jeanne and I saw “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”, the documentary about Fred Rogers that has already become the highest-grossing biographical documentary of all time. We tend to judge the movies we see based on the quality of conversation that we have about it on the way home. My first comment was “If Jesus came back to earth today, he would be Fred Rogers.” There are moral standards, and then there is Mister Rogers. The... Read more
Last week, my blog post about what atheists and persons of faith can agree on caused a bit of a stir from both the faith and atheism sides of the spectrum. Most of the pushback came in comments on my blog’s Facebook page, where an evangelical Christian and an atheist got into an argument that, before long, was about as civil and intelligent as your typical argument between a Trump-loving conservative and a progressive liberal. I appreciated that at least... Read more
One Sunday, toward the end of a particularly lively and deep seminar with my “Living Stones” adult Christian education group after the morning service, I asked the group “so what makes us think that we are anything special, that Episcopalians have a better angle on God than anyone else? What makes us think that our way is any better than anyone else’s, Christian or otherwise, other than that it is our way?” Very quickly one person replied “it isn’t any better.” And everyone... Read more
Tomorrow is Halloween!–one of my least favorite holidays of the year. I know that offends many people, but so be it. Still, the onset of Halloween brings back memories–many of them religion and church related. Maybe that’s why I don’t like the holiday! As a 62-year-old guy with no small children in my life, I don’t do Halloween. Often Jeanne and I celebrate the day by going to a late afternoon movie, followed by dinner, so we can be conveniently away... Read more
The first lectionary reading at church the past three Sundays have been from one of my two favorite texts from the Hebrew scriptures—the Book of Job (the Book of Ruth is my other favorite). As a philosophy professor and a person of faith, for me Job is a literary masterpiece, an exquisite and powerful dramatic treatment of the problem of innocent suffering and the larger problem of evil. Earlier this semester, Job was a seminar text in an Honors interdisciplinary,... Read more
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Ephesians 4:26 Another week, another bunch of reasons to be angry at the President. From claims that people are rioting in their attempts to escape sanctuary cities, through insisting that members of MS-13 and likely terrorists from the Middle East are hiding in the middle of the refugees headed to our southern border from Central America, to suggesting that a Congress not even in session will pass a middle class tax bill... Read more
Every once in a while someone posts a comment on my blog that reminds me of why I dedicate so much time, thought, and energy to my writing. A while ago, a person new to following my blog posted just such a comment. He was actually commenting on a post that I wrote several months ago, in which I (as I often have) expressed my confusion about why evangelical Christians are so supportive of Donald Trump. Here’s what he wrote:... Read more
About a month ago I received an email from my friend Marsue, brief and to the point. “I just finished the craziest book and thought of you,” she wrote. “It might appeal to your philosophical side.” The book was Patricia Hampl’s The Art of the Wasted Day. I have learned over the years to take Marsue’s book recommendations very seriously; my first encounter with any number of my favorite authors—Barbara Brown Taylor, for instance—has been because of similar emails from... Read more
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