Mike Bird complained not long ago about the television series The Handmaid’s Tale – my hunch is without having seen it, since he got the name wrong. But he is clearly influenced by a growing tendency in conservative Christian circles for people to talk about the show as an “attack on Christianity.” Anyone who says that clearly has not seen episode 7. I am still getting caught up on watching my way through the first season. But there are clear elements... Read more
Politicians have been taking aim at immigration and immigrants, and the poem that was added to the base of the Statue of Liberty early in the 20th century has been targeted as well. That poem was written not only to mark the occasion of the setting up of the statue that France gave to the United States, but to raise money for the pedestal that it would sit atop. And so the fact that it was later added to that... Read more
Another piece that can be included on my long list of musical settings of Biblical texts is Ernst Krenek’s setting of Lamentations. I’m not sure how I neglected it (not that I needed more musical examples for the class). Krenek’s piece is mentioned in the Fortress Commentary on the Bible and the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible. It strikes me as less “lamenty” that other settings, such as the one by Canadian composer Peter-Anthony Togni, excerpts of which can... Read more
The image above came my way via Facebook. So too did the NPR piece titled “The Ongoing Battle Between Science Teachers and Fake News.” In it, Susan Yoon “suggests teachers give students the tools to think like a scientist. Teach them to gather evidence, check sources, deduce, hypothesize and synthesize results. Hopefully, then, they will come to the truth on their own.” I had been meaning for some time to blog about the current climate (pun intended) that we live in,... Read more
Connor Wood shared this call for applications for a fellowship on religion and science, the deadline for which is today: APPLY FOR THE 2017-2019 SINAI AND SYNAPSES FELLOWSHIP! Applications due July 31st. Do you want to learn from some of the top scientists, theologians and thinkers in the world? Do you want to meet and network with a diverse and yet intimate group of scientists, clergy and writers who will inspire you and challenge you? Are you frustrated that the... Read more
In the latest post in her “Faith in the Fog” series, Emma Higgs writes: Love is not the easy option The conservative evangelical voice in my head still occasionally wonders if this is wishful thinking. An attempt to soften the Truth, to make it all sound nicer and more palatable. It sounds suspiciously like wishy-washy, fluffy, hippy nonsense doesn’t it? Well, that depends on how you define love. The Biblical accounts of the life and death of Jesus are still, for... Read more
You may have already seen the news that DNA analysis of Canaanite skeletons in the region of ancient Sidon in what is today Lebanon shows their close genetic relationship to the current inhabitants of that country. Let me start by pointing out that some of the headlines that I have seen circulating about this are simply wrong, and doubly so. First of all, the Bible is very clear (in places) that the Canaanites were never completely wiped out from Israel. But... Read more
I became aware of the game Genesis (the one that I blogged about recently) through the website of Game Paradise, a game library here in Indianapolis. I visited it for the first time with colleagues and wanted to mention it here. One of the things that I had the chance to do was to try out the new board game Terraforming Mars. Below, you will see my colleagues playing the game. The game seems dauntingly complicated when you first attempt reading... Read more
I had the opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new movie Detroit yesterday night. For someone like me, born after the 60s, events like the riots in Detroit, and the Algiers motel incident are not something I’d have seen in the news. And having watched the movie with my teenage son who loves history, he was dismayed that the details of this period are glossed over quickly, merely summarized in history classes in high school in very brief terms:... Read more
Another couple of games with biblical themes came to my attention recently. One is Genesis, by game company Gigantoskop. Here is the description from their website: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. It took him six days to complete his work, assisted by a host of heavenly angels doing his divine bidding. On the seventh day God rested and examined the result. Seeing that it was good, he praised the angel who had contributed the most.... Read more
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