My guests on this week’s podcast are Deirdre Good, whom I had the pleasure to meet some years ago when I guest taught a class at General Theological Seminary in Manhattan, and Katie Day, who is the Charles A. Schieren Professor of Church and Society at United Lutheran Seminary. It is not surprising that I’ve had more connection with Deirdre given the significant overlaps in our research and teaching areas. Both are academics, and they recently worked together to produce... Read more
Another call for papers that has me excited, since I myself have increasingly gotten involved in, or at least tried to engage in, not merely analyzing and studying popular culture, but contributing to it. Have I mentioned that I have an idea for a graphic novel? It would have educational value, but part of the point is that I think it can potentially do more good if that is not known to be one of the aims behind producing it. But at... Read more
I was contacted recently by someone who was looking for a meme that illustrated how fundamentalist Christians, who claim to rely on “the Bible alone,” are thoroughly dependent on academic work on the Bible in ways that they either fail to notice or simply refuse to acknowledge. Two memes came to mind, which I had shared on my blog previously. But I also thought that perhaps I ought to turn something that I myself wrote back in 2010 into a... Read more
At one of the public lectures in this year’s Butler Seminar on Religion and Global Affairs, which has focused on religion, ecology, and the environment, someone in the audience asked the speaker whether humankind is a virus (specifically referencing Agent Smith’s statement in The Matrix to that effect). Thinking about it, I came up with my own answer: Human beings are the only species on planet Earth which has the freedom to choose whether to be a virus or not.... Read more
I really appreciate the “Book Addict’s Defense of the Smartphone” which made the following case: My point is not that I don’t think that smartphones can cause problems for attention, focus, and interpersonal relationships. I’ll stipulate that we have not adjusted to the downsides of having the internet – and everything that comes along with the web – in our pockets. What I am saying is that the advantages of being to store, listen to, and read books – wherever... Read more
In response to a question about appeal to consensus on Facebook, and the suggestion that “an appeal to consensus isn’t an argument,” I wrote the following: It is a summarized reference to conclusions drawn by the majority of experts after engaging in arguments spanning decades and often longer. Those arguments cannot be repeated every time a subject comes up, and should not need to be, although it is a common internet debate tactic to pretend that this is the same... Read more
After becoming a born-again Christian in my teens, I thought I faced persecution. I became a vocal proclaimer of the gospel as I understood it. Not everyone agreed with me. Some around me gave expression to what might be called “New Agey” types of viewpoints. People didn’t typically repent of their sins and convert to an Evangelical form of Christianity in response to my efforts. I considered it a hostile environment. I had no idea. This might be excusable when... Read more
This week’s episode of the ReligionProf Podcast continues my conversation with Brian Wesolowski. As I did for the first part, so too this week I want to provide links to a wide array of content that connects with the theme of our conversation on the podcast, namely the intersection of technology and grace. Hopefully the reasons why I thought these articles would be of interest in connection with this theme will be self-evident in most if not indeed in... Read more
If you allow yourself to get entangled in debates with Jesus mythicists, you will regularly find yourself reaching a point at which you wonder how it can be that they so badly misunderstand the New Testament documents. Then one of them will claim that Osiris was thought to be the Messiah, with a link to a website as “evidence,” and suddenly the problem becomes clear. If this sort of thing interests you, take a look at this website, where you... Read more
A call for papers that came my way via Javier Martinez: We are planning a new publication, investigating the subject of Fakes and Forgeries and Issues of Authenticity in Classical Literature, to be comprised of original scholarly contributions. As in our former volumes on this topic, we hope to include approaches to the subject from a broad array of scholarly disciplines—including, but not limited to, literature and critical theory, aesthetics, philosophy, history, political science, and linguistics. We believe that new... Read more
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