Today’s gospel lectionary reading reminds me of an August day several years ago when the small Episcopal church that I frequently attend moved its morning services out of the sanctuary out “into all the world” on a beautiful summer morning, heading a half mile down the road to a town park on Narragansett Bay. A small table in the gazebo served as the altar, as twenty-five or so 8:00 service regulars enjoyed a modest version of taking the gospel into... Read more
Natural disasters have been on my mind recently. Perhaps it’s because of the fury of Hurricane Ian a few weeks ago, devastating an area of Florida where my son and daughter-in-law lived for several years and where many of their friends lost everything in the storm. Perhaps it’s because a seminar on Enlightenment satire early in the semester got me to thinking about the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake described in Voltaire’s Candide. Perhaps it is because our seminar text in... Read more
A few weeks ago in the interdisciplinary Honors course that I am team-teaching in this semester, we are smack in the middle of the 18th century. And that, among other things, means satire. I love satire and frequently use it in class to great effect, an effect heightened by the fact that the average nineteen-year-old can’t tell the difference between satire, irony, and a spreadsheet (even when they are in the Honors program). The texts for our satire seminar included... Read more
Over the years that I have been writing this blog, those who describe themselves as non-believers or atheists have frequently expressed a consistent confusion and frustration. It usually goes something like this: “How can someone who seems to be relatively normal and intelligent believe in something without any evidence?” I don’t get defensive when asked this and similar questions—I don’t want to be that sort of Christian. I often reply by suggesting that there is evidence to support my faith,... Read more
Back in December 2020, about a month after the November 2020 presidential election, I posted an essay on this blog called “Will Goodness Become Cool?” I wrote that As President-elect Biden rolls out his National Security choices, his economic strategy team, his communications staff, and various Cabinet picks, I can feel the heart rates of millions of my fellow American lowering as we also remember what deep breaths feel like. Competence. Experience. Lifelong commitment to service. On Facebook, I posted... Read more
Yesterday was Columbus Day. Correction, it was Indigenous Peoples Day. This is not energized by political correctness. It is energized by the truth, by accurate history, and by a recognition of the damage and carnage that human beings do to each other for all sorts of reasons. In the honors interdisciplinary program I teach in, my colleagues and I have chosen over the past two years to make the texts for the seminar closest to Indigenous Peoples Day a selection... Read more
Human beings never behave so badly as when they believe they are protecting God. Barbara Brown Taylor Every time someone claims that we live in a country founded on “Christian principles,” I think of Benjamin Franklin. His Autobiography is often a text at the appropriate time in the interdisciplinary program I teach in—it’s short, pithy, no nonsense and quintessentially American. Exactly what I would expect from Ben. He doesn’t say a lot about organized religion other than to express his distaste... Read more
A bit over a week ago at my brother-in-law’s wake, I spent several minutes chatting with my niece-in-law’s husband (which I guess makes him my nephew-in-law-in-law). He was sitting quietly in a seat in the back row of chairs while just about everyone else was working the room. It struck me that sitting quietly with Matt was a good idea. We often gravitate toward each other whenever Jeanne’s large family gathers together because we share something in common. We are... Read more
What it means to be a person, and how that is different than being human, has been on my mind a lot lately. At the “With Mutual Respect” abortion discussion where I was a panelist last week, I emphasized the importance of distinguishing between “person” and “human” when considering the status of the fetus. Several of the questions from the audience, as I expected, asked me to say more about “personhood”–and why I don’t believe that being biologically human, as... Read more
In today’s gospel reading from Luke, Jesus’ disciples make a very simple request: “Increase our faith.” Jesus responds in his frequently over-the-top and inscrutable way: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” Oh really? Figuring out exactly what Jesus is talking about requires learning something about the mustard plant. Bear with me. My family and I spent three... Read more
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