2021 turned out to be the year when I couldn’t manage to keep up my rhythm of sharing a blog post every single day. Having committed to not writing very short posts, perhaps it was only a matter of time. Newspaper columnists traditionally offered something weekly in most cases, and so perhaps aiming to share something worth reading every day was overly ambitious. However, I do think that the context of the pandemic was the key factor. Let’s be honest,... Read more
I had hoped to be able to share the talk I gave to an audience primarily in Iran about artificial intelligence and theistic ethical reasoning. It will hopefully be made available online at some point. Apparently some 1,500 people watched the livestream. Here is a runthrough I recorded when timing myself. In the actual presentation I had to cut some material here. This also lacks the Farsi translation/summary of what I was saying. I listened to the audiobook of Meghan... Read more
I had the opportunity to interview Mike Austin about his book God and Guns in America. The transcript follows below, with my questions in bold. What led you to write God and Guns in America? I saw people, including many Christians, who were very confident about their views, but many of the arguments they offered seemed shallow to me, or at least not strong enough to justify that confidence. This is true for people at both ends of the ideological spectrum. That... Read more
There is a new website project spearheaded by Prof. Sharon Kim with the title Literature and Religion: Resources for Academic Inquiry. There is still a need for contributors and for section editors, especially in relation to science fiction. I just know I am connected with people who will want to get involved in this in some way. Here is the information about the project from the website: This site exists to provide a comprehensive overview of the field of literature and... Read more
Merry Christmas! Here are some of my family’s favorite Romanian Christmas carols, with English translations of the words for those who may benefit from them. Enjoy! Romanian Christmas Carols in translation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASgeKN-fx4M Good morning this Christmas Eve! Will you give us something or not? [repeat] We too have come We wish you a healthy year May the holy Lord grant us Pretzels and walnuts galore! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpr4N8U1so Behold the Carolers are Coming! The flowers are white On the... Read more
The Matrix Resurrections is so meta that most of it may be lost on those who never saw the original trilogy. It is the resurrection of the franchise, of Neo and Trinity, and of the Matrix as a virtual world within the films. The movie comments on itself as well as the earlier Matrix films in a way that is not just “meta” for its own sake but insightful. The analyst who is the architect of the new Matrix seeking... Read more
Luke’s Gospel is distinctive in many ways, but particularly noteworthy is its account of the infancy of John the Baptist. Indeed, the Gospel of Luke tells us a great deal more than the other Synoptics about John and his followers, and all that material stands out in some way. Luke drops the depiction of John as an oddly-dressed hermit and makes him more clearly an itinerant activist throughout the region of the Jordan River. Luke elaborates on John’s ethical teaching concerning... Read more
I had the opportunity to talk just these past few days with Niq Ruud about his book Only Love. Here is the interview: What led you to write Only Love? I think initially it was story which led me to write this book—because narrative is what sticks. I grew up in rather fundamentalist Christian circles which had me inherit a worldview that elevated the stories of scripture well above the lived experience those of us living in the modern world. It... Read more
Clif Hostetler wrote the following on Amazon as a review of my book What Jesus Learned from Women: The New Testament was written by men living in a patriarchal age that tended to discount the role of women in society. Nevertheless, the presence of women is acknowledged, and this provides a hint that their role may have been more significant than portrayed. If Jesus was truly human he needed to learn about his world from those he encountered in everyday... Read more
I provided an endorsement for Jonathan Bernier’s new book Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament. Here’s what I wrote, which you can find quoted on the publisher’s website: In Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament Jonathan Bernier offers a much-needed corrective to the tendency for the dates assigned to New Testament works to drift further and further in opposite directions due more to ideological preferences than evidence, or to be confidently placed roughly around the middle of a possible... Read more
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