Although I estimate that at least 80-90 percent of the negative comments and pushback I get on my blog are from angry conservative evangelical Christians (I’ve been doing more blocking than usual over the past few weeks), I frequently get pushback from the other end of the spectrum–atheists who want either to know what evidence I have to justify believing in God’s existence or why I remain a person of faith when so many of my stated beliefs and perspectives... Read more
Last weekend I attended a student production of Macbeth on campus, the first such production I’ve attended since before the pandemic. Our performing arts center has a beautiful small theater; with Jeanne out of town for work, I purchased seat A1, front row at the center end. To be honest, if Jeanne had been along I probably would have purchased A1 and A2, since she if comfortable with sitting in the front row as well. I love Shakespeare. I got... Read more
The best argument in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story. Richard Powers Richard Powers is one of my favorite novelists, perhaps the best living novelist that most people have either never heard of or haven’t read if they have heard of him. His latest novel is Bewilderment. I’m still not sure if I like it or not, but that’s not unusual for a Powers novel. He makes the reader... Read more
A conversation overheard as a bunch of guys at a sports bar wait for the big game to begin: “Dude, I’ve got one for you. There are these seven brothers named Aaron, Bill, Carl, Dave, Eric, Fred and George. Aaron’s the oldest one and he marries his high school girlfriend Paula. But he dies and Bill marries Paula because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.” “That’s kind of weird. Is Paula hot?” “What does that matter? “If I... Read more
One of my colleagues and friends and I are beginning to construct the syllabus for a colloquium we will be teaching next semester. We taught it successfully last spring but are up for a few tweaks the second time around. We closed last spring’s colloquium with Wholehearted Faith, Rachel Held Evans’ final book published after her untimely and tragic death in 2019. Evans’ work resonates with me because her story is somewhat similar to mine, an emergence from Protestant fundamentalism toward... Read more
In my ethics class this week, we discussed an essay by Gary Gutting, who teaches at the University of Notre Dame, that engages with one of the most famous arguments for the existence of God ever offered: Blaise Pascal’s “Wager.” Except that the “Wager” is not an argument for the existence of God at all. Rather, it is Pascal’s analysis of an interesting situation that human beings find themselves in. Since we cannot prove beyond the shadow of a doubt... Read more
It’s Halloween. Halloween gives me the opportunity to consider my long and checkered past with the Christian faith, as well as why I stay within the Christian tent in spite of what appear to be good reasons to leave. 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... Read more
In the ten-plus years of this blog’s existence, I have made any number of Christians angry. Sometimes accidentally, often deliberately. But there is nothing more certain to piss off certain types of Christians than suggesting that the gospel of Jesus and the gospel of Karl Marx have a lot in common. During the middle of a semester my essays on this site are often directly connected with what is going on in my various classrooms. Over the past ten days... Read more
Halloween is coming–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 66-year-old guy with no small children in my life, I don’t do Halloween. In the past Jeanne and I have celebrated the day by going to a late afternoon movie, followed by dinner, so we... 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
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