I recently posted an excerpt from “Every Star Shall Sing a Carol” by Sydney Carter. You can listen to the piece online here, and can find sheet music for the melody here. I also came across a small poem called “Interview” that expresses Carter’s outlook: So what do you believe in?Nothing fixed or final,all the while Itravel a miracle. I doubt,and yetI walk upon the water Read more

The latest of the Dharma Special Access videos have been made available. In the first, the producers give intentionally ambiguous answers to fans’ questions. The only straight answer is when they tell us that the smoke monster existed on the island before the Dharma Initiative got there. There is also another clip from the season premiere. Definitely worth taking a look! Read more

On tonight’s Heroes finale, Sylar puts a bunch of the show’s “heroes” together in circumstances planned to bring out the worst in them, to see whether they are capable of killing, of being “monsters” like he is. But in fact, as he confronts Angela trying to get at the truth, he almost begs her to persuade him that she is different from him. Deep down he’s not seeking proof that everyone is like him. He’s seeking evidence that they aren’t.... Read more

I’ve created a countdown timer until the big event: The NT Wrong interview, scheduled for February 1st, 2009. http://www.oneplusyou.com/bb/files/countdown/countdown.swf?co=0099FF&bgcolor=FFFFFF&date_month=02&date_day=01&date_year=1&un=NT WRONG: THE INTERVIEW&size=giant&mo=02&da=01&yr=2009 Read more

This semester in my “heresy” class, the relationship between various aeons, archons and entities in various Gnostic texts became confusing, as it often does. I looked into it, but was disappointed to find that there didn’t seem to be a flow chart readily available outlining the Gnostic emanations. Well, one student decided to take matters into her own hands. This flow chart is an attempt to depict the relationships in the text On The Origin of the World. Let me... Read more

Peter Rollins has a challenging story called “The Rapture” that I highly recommend reading. Tony Jones shares a quote on the Newsweek kerfuffle (which I think is now the official way of referring to the recent article on the Bible and gay marriage the the reactions to it). Michael Spencer blogs about an ideal evangelicalism (and has apparently found “The Perfect Church”). Craig Blomberg has a guest post on Debunking Christianity about why he is still a Christian. Opposing Views... Read more

Matt Montonini has found some free NT Greek classes on YouTube. Kay has a post on the universal good news. Sandwalk shares some statistics on the religious beliefs of scientists (broadly defined). Debunking Christianity shares several links to resources about the Hebrew view of the universe by Dr. Paul Seely. James Getz has shared YouTube videos of the history of Mesopotamia…in Legos! Targuman has more things you can do with Legos. Antiquitopia, Rev’s Rumbles and Ancient Hebrew Poetry reflect on... Read more

I’ve had an article published in Religion Dispatches. The title is “Passages vs. Principles“, and it compares the use of the Bible in current debates about homosexuality to its use in the controversy over slavery. Do take a look, and leave a comment there, here, or both! Read more

The second commandment (on the counting of some this is the second part of the first commandment) as found in Exodus 20:4 reads as follows: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Then you take a look at the bumper of the car of your average person who claims to be a Biblical literalist... Read more

Take one part overly-familiar Bible verses. Repeat these verses over and over again until a thick, opaque layer is formed. Use this layer to cover the remaining 39 parts consisting of Bible verses that do not talk about the same subject as those more familiar verses, verses which seem to disagree with them, as well as verses you don’t understand, verses you understand but do not put into practice, and any other verses you could happily live without. Bake until... Read more