For a number of reasons, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Because my sons (ages 8 and 6) and I met Jeanne at my parents’ condo on Thanksgiving Eve thirty-three years ago, we have always treated Thanksgiving as “our” holiday. Once the boys became adults and scattered to the four winds, until just a few years ago we would all gather here in Providence for Thanksgiving, always joined by friends with nowhere else to go for the holiday, my sons’ current... Read more
In the eight-plus years that I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve occasionally been asked what a “Freelance Christian” is. I call myself a freelance Christian because I don’t believe that any particular doctrinal formulation of the Christian faith is satisfactory. This is not because I’m still looking for the doctrinal package for Christianity that fits my own eclectic faith most closely; it’s because I don’t believe Christianity can be packaged in a doctrinal statement at all. Jesus did not come... Read more
You can either think of the creeds of the great traditions . . . as telling you what you ought to think. Or you can say they are in some sense comparable to the theories of science. Lindon Eaves Two or three years ago, Harvard political philosopher and professor of government Danielle Allen gave a talk on campus as part of my college’s year-long centennial celebration. I was fortunate enough to be invited to join ten or so faculty and... Read more
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks died on November 7, after a brief bout with cancer. Sacks was the Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth of Nations from 1991-2013, the author of many insightful and well-received books, and gave some of the most interesting interviews I have ever heard. I wrote about Sacks, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and our feeble human attempts to harness God a couple of years ago . . . A Jewish friend of mine told me a number of years... Read more
I was asked a few days ago by someone in our Marketing and Communications area on campus (the people who are responsible for what we look and sound like to the larger community) to reflect, now that this semester is close to over, on what teaching during Covid-19 has been for both my students and me. This essay is spending the next two weeks on the front page of my college’s website. Enjoy! The first line of the ancient Stoic... Read more
As is the case with many of the things in my life, my knowledge of social media is both narrow and deep. I am active only on two social media platforms, but on those limited platforms I am very active. Any time I have wondered about something other than Facebook and Twitter, I ask my oldest son who, because of his work, is active across numerous social media platforms, whether I should try it out. He always tells me to... Read more
I love the stars. Not as in “Dancing with . . .” or in Hollywood or Washington DC. I mean the stars in the heavens. The night sky in rural Vermont where I grew up, far from the glare of urban lights, was a source of endless wonder and entertainment. Part of the attraction of the stars was their sheer beauty and mystery, providing a glimpse of light-years past history; this was heightened by my love of the stories of... Read more
During his first speech as the new President-elect last Saturday evening, Joe Biden quoted lines from the chorus of a hymn that has come to be meaningful to him: And He will raise you up on eagles’ wings Bear you on the breath of dawn Make you to shine like the sun And hold you in the palm of His hand Anyone who has ever stepped inside a Catholic church more than once for a mass that includes music has... Read more
My doctor says that I am his most boring patient, because there is never anything wrong with me. I show up for my yearly appointment, my blood pressure is good, my weight fluctuates within a five-pound range of my target weight, my blood work is always fine—my only complaints are spring allergies, for which he says “take Claritin,” and occasional sciatica problems, for which he suggests that I should stretch more. I have never been in a hospital overnight except when I... Read more
People are prone to apply the meaning of other people’s arguments to suit opinions that they have previously determined in their minds. Michel de Montaigne Not long ago, I found myself involved in a discussion on a progressive Christian Facebook page, a site that occasionally shares my blog posts. The article under discussion was directed primarily at evangelical Christians, wondering what they thought about the fact that Jesus in the gospels regularly speaks and acts as if he believes in income... Read more
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