In my Sunday school class this past Sunday, we moved into chapter 9 of the Gospel of John. Since there is a focus on healing on a Sabbath, we turned our attention once again to the theme of prioritization of values that I explored in my recent blog post, “Diverse Diversities.” I tried to not only highlight this as characteristic of the teaching of Jesus, and of the American Baptists, but also to make clear that it is not simply a... Read more
I’ve mentioned before how much I feel I have learned about the New Testament from living in Romania. But I also feel like there is more to be learned and explored. For instance, not long ago I visited a Romanian church in Chicago, and I went armed with knowledge from having lived in Romania for several years and having visited even more frequently. I knew I had to go prepared to say something if asked without any notice, because visitors... Read more
A friend drew to my attention the following meme that a friend of theirs posted on Facebook: There is so much to say about this. First, since the aim is to make heaven a standard for current American policy, I simply must mention the fact that this is what conservative Christian Trump supporters refuse to do when it comes to things like the economic principles in the Bible, whether ancient Israel’s laws like the Jubilee year, or the early church’s... Read more
Richard Carrier has taken to calling me a doofus and launching a variety of other insults in my direction. And so presumably I’ve highlighted an important problem with his stance, since otherwise there would be no need for a lengthy screed that deals in insults rather than substance, as is par for the course with Carrier, and which (as is also typical for Carrier) misrepresents what I wrote from the very outset. You’ll notice, if you read his post, that... Read more
In a recent blog post Steve Wiggins wrote, “The white man doesn’t believe in evolution because that makes race random rather than a deliberate act of God at the appropriately named tower of Babel.” While I found much of his advocacy for a “color blind” approach problematic, his passing suggestion that there might be a connection between racism and evolution denial seemed worth exploring further. I know that nowadays Ken Ham claims that his brand of anti-evolutionism is anti-racist whereas evolution... Read more
It is a fantastic time to be working in the field of Mandaean studies, whether as a scholar of religion, as a linguist working on Mandaic, or in any other capacity. I can’t think of a time ever before in the past when publications related to the study of the religion, history, texts, traditions, rituals, language, contemporary refugee plight, or anything else to do with the Mandaeans has been given such regular attention by academics. I’m excited, of course, at the... Read more
I’m not sure that I’ve ever actually played the game “two truths and a lie.” I think I have. Then again, maybe I know I have and am lying. Either way, I found myself thinking about the game for some reason as I was reminded of the problematic case that Richard Carrier has made for incorporating mathematical probability (and more specifically a Bayesian approach) into historical methods. I think that the game helps illustrate the problem. If one followed Carrier’s logic,... Read more
It started with me saying that “the Bible is not in the Bible” in my Sunday school class. I was referring to the conundrum for those who speak of the Bible as their ultimate authority, namely that the contents of the Bible cannot be settled on the basis of biblical authority. That got us on to the idea of sola scriptura, and so I emphasized that the Bible isn’t alone, either. This is true in many senses. One is the fact... Read more
My project on artificial wisdom and driverless cars has highlighted for me the need to think not only about moral and ethical principles, but how to adjudicate between them when they come into conflict with one another. Some of the readings for the Council of Independent Colleges institute I attended recently in Atlanta on “Diversity, Inclusion, and the Liberal Arts,” as well as some of the talks and presentations given there, seemed to me to require consideration through this lens.... Read more
Richard Beck posted one of his characteristically provocative posts recently, this one with a title informing readers that “you don’t have time for ‘What Would Jesus Do?'” Here is part of that post: Most of us, I’m guessing, think that becoming more Christ-like in our lives is a process of making good choices. Life presents us with a series of moral decisions and we need to ask ourselves at each of these crossroads “What would Jesus do?” But…life isn’t really... Read more
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