This blog post was sparked by a question raised in a post on the blog Red Letter Christians: Why don’t more of us study and think of theological giants like the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his chief of staff, the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, as theologians? Social justice luminaries such as King and Walker are somehow viewed only as activists or civil rights leaders — but not as theologians. This is problematic. I agree. The stereotype of the... Read more
The usual way for discussion of the Bible as “inspired,” “infallible,” or “inerrant” to proceed is for conservative theologians to decide in advance what those terms mean, assume or argue a priori that they apply to the Bible, and then shoehorn the Bible into the box. That this is inappropriate at best, and an attack on and distortion of the Bible at worst, rarely gets mentioned. So I appreciated the post on the blog Euangelion about Amos Yong’s effort to... Read more
A number of blog posts and articles have converged on aspects of Evangelical culture and identity in ways that I think it will be useful to bring into conversation with one another. The post that got me thinking about these connections is about “Hobby Lobby Evangelicalism” and consists mostly of an ethnographic account of visiting the store. Here’s a quote from the post that particularly jumped out at me: George Marsden once defined evangelicalism as “anyone who likes Billy Graham.”... Read more
I had a chance to speak with Mary Milz of WTHR News yesterday about local matters that connect with national and global ones and which are about to get more attention today. You can read a couple of brief snippets from me in the article that I was interviewed for. But I thought I would share the other thoughts that didn’t make it into the brief news clip on this topic. Two topics involving the Catholic Church and its teachings... Read more
Having invented a game called Canon: The Card Game, I’m inevitably going to keep returning to the subject of canon over and over again. But as you’ll see below, interesting images, books, articles, videos, and calls for papers keep highlighting the subject and calling me back to it. And in this particular instance, it isn’t just canon in general but precisely the intersection of the canons of Star Wars and Christianity that have been prominent. First, Joel Hingston made and... Read more
In the second episode of the new ReligionProf Podcast, I sit down with my friend and colleague Ankur Gupta to talk about our Artificial Wisdom project. This ends up being a two-parter, since there is so much that is worth talking about at the intersection of computer science, ethics, religion, and science fiction. We are both clearly really excited about the work we’ve been doing so far and where this is headed! I have been collecting links related to this... Read more
The ETC Blog is one of countless outlets that have talked about the terrible fire at the Brazil National Museum. Few give thought to the precariousness of such treasure troves of historical knowledge. Even those of us who do family history research, and worry about the possibility that a fire in our own home might destroy forever some unique photo of or document from or about an ancestor, put out of our mind the thought of something like that happening... Read more
Jesus’ saying about a camel passing through the eye of a needle, it has been suggested, reflects a misunderstanding of what Jesus actually said in Aramaic, since the word for camel is similar to the word for rope. But I wonder whether in fact it was an intentional play on words, much as a punster today might say that it is time to talk about the sycophant in the room, expecting hearers to know that “elephant” makes more sense and... Read more
Morgan Guyton recently offered a helpful challenge to a widespread conservative Evangelical way of thinking about sin. He writes: No evangelical will ever admit to being a legalist because it contradicts our theology of justification by faith, but if your only understanding of Christian morality is “The Bible says…” then you have a morality of coloring inside the lines. Even if you think that our faith in Jesus’ sacrifice saves us from God’s legalistic authoritarian expectations, you still think that... Read more
Please join us for ICFA [International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts] 40, March 13-17, 2019, when our theme will be “Politics and Conflict.” We welcome papers on the work of: Guest Scholar Mark Bould (Reader, University of the West of England; winner of the SFRA Pilgrim Award; author of several books on sf including Science Fiction: The Routledge Film Guidebook) and Guest Author G. Willow Wilson (winner of a PEN Center award; writer of the Hugo-Award-winning series Ms.... Read more
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