I have an appreciation for music of various sorts, and hate to do anything to spoil good music (I know someone who cannot enjoy several pieces of Rachmaninov because they were hijacked as pop songs). But I also enjoy musical satire (as my mentions of and links to Igudesman and Joo and Victor Borge indicate). And so I’ve left doing mischevious things to Christmas songs until the post-holiday season, when the versions I’ve tampered with won’t come to mind and make you giggle... Read more

Starting next Sunday, my Sunday school class will be reading Scot McKnight’s book The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible together. We’ll be reading chapter 1 for next time. For those who may be interested, I previously reviewed the book here on this blog. Read more

“I assure you as one who’s come through this process, letting go of inerrancy is an act of faith in the One who should be standing behind our beliefs, whom we have encountered in some meaningful way.” –Steve, ‘The place of fear in our bibliology’ at his blog Undeception I had a hard time choosing just one short quote from this post which is both insightful and full of memorable gems of wisdom. I recommend reading the whole thing. Read more

It wouldn’t be a typical Christmas for me without jumping in my TARDIS and spending an hour in the UK watching the Dr. Who Christmas special. (Surely you wouldn’t expect a time lord to wait until it is shown in the US, would you?) All I’ll say is that it is fantastic, with some footage near the beginning which I hope to clip and include at some point in my religion and sci-fi course. And the ending (which is a cliffhanger until... Read more

A colleague forwarded me an article that appeared on CNN today, about Jesus being “rich.” Where to start? I think an interesting verse to look at is 2 Corinthians 8:9. The classic view is that the reference is to “spiritual riches”, to a pre-existent status given up in the incarnation. A number of scholars have raised significant doubts about whether Paul held to a view that could accurately be described as “belief in Jesus’ pre-existence”, in which case it becomes... Read more

Having posted an assortment of Christmas video and music clips, let me offer three more, for a variety of tastes. The first is an exploration using LEGOs of what happens if you forget to get Darth Vader a Christmas present: The second is a classic Christmas song by a classic progressive rock performer, Greg Lake: And finally (in three parts, below is part one) there is Cantate de Noel by Arthur Honegger: Something for everyone, I hope! Merry Christmas! Read more

(I’d much rather have shared something from Keith Emerson’s Christmas album, but couldn’t find any selections from it online. None of Kate Kestrel’s Christmas songs from Terrahawks either…) Read more

HT SF Signal Read more

MERRY CHRISTMAS! (Photo from the Hubble telescope) Read more

Here’s my son and I playing at tonight’s Christmas Eve service: Read more