A couple of days ago, the following from Franklin Graham came across my Twitter feed: Christians should be aware of candidates who call themselves progressive. Progressive is generally just a code word for someone who leans toward socialism, who does not believe in God, & who will likely vote against Godly principles that are so important to our nation. In context, Franklin’s tweet came in the wake of a progressive judge winning a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court this... Read more
We should read the New Testament as saying that how we treat each other on earth matters a great deal more than the outcome of debate concerning the existence or nature of another world. Richard Rorty, “Failed Prophecies, Glorious Hopes” One of the many things I enjoy about teaching philosophy is that I regularly get to engage with students in studying the texts of thinkers labelled as “dangerous” or worse by various authority figures in my youth. Darwin . .... Read more
A Benedictine monk once told me that Darwin has taught us more about God than all of the theologians put together. I think he was right. Read more
God is not an insurance agent. H. G. Wells During Rick Pitino’s tenure as the coach of the Boston Celtics from 1997-2001, he was often asked about when, if ever, the mediocre Celtics would reach the rarified air of excellence reached by Bill Russell’s Celtics of the 60s and Larry Bird’s Celtics of the 80s. After yet another loss in 2000 and yet more questions about when things would get better, Pitino lost it in the postgame press conference. Larry... Read more
"Could you not stay awake with me one hour?" Jesus asked his disciples. It's a good question for us as well. Read more
Holy Week is upon us once again—as good a time as any to step back and reflect a bit on where I find myself as a person of faith three weeks into my 62nd year. I come from a Evangelical Christian upbringing in which what we believed was crystal clear from large doctrinal demands to minutiae about when television was okay to watch and why dancing and going to movies never were okay. Needless to say, I’ve evolved (or strayed) far... Read more
At its best, faith is the overflow of gratitude, the attempt to live as if we are loved, the fragile hope for something better on the other side of pain and death. And this feather of grace weighs more in the balance than any political gain. Michael Gerson One of the great liberating moments of my life was when I was given the opportunity as an undergraduate at a secular liberal arts college to read, analyze, critique, and appreciate the Bible... Read more
Any caring human being asks the question What is the right thing to do? on a regular basis. As a philosophy professor who teaches ethics regularly, I am aware that in the minds of many, the whole purpose of thinking systematically and rigorously about the moral life is to provide reliable and confident answers to that very question. Moral philosophers from Immanuel Kant to Iris Murdoch, from Aristotle to Alasdair MacIntyre, have provided frameworks within which to answer the question. But... Read more
During the last third of the semester in my General Ethics class this semester, we will be considering first race, then gun violence. Although we sometime treat these as separate issues, they are often intimately connected. In the middle of a discussion not long ago on aspects of on of my blog posts, I noted that It is impossible it is for someone like me to know what it is like to be a person of color in our country.... Read more
God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives without God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer In my introductory ethics class, we are currently in the middle of a unit called “Does God Have Anything To Do With Ethics?” Perhaps it is a feature of teaching at a Catholic college, but I am frequently surprised by how many of my students are convinced that the only basis for being moral is belief in a God who will... Read more
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