The Fear of Losing God (and the God of Losing Fear)

Last updated on: April 29, 2016 at 6:35 am By James F. McGrath

Having pushed students to wrestle with historical methods and their application to Jesus this semester, and the fact that those methods don’t allow them to demonstrate the miracles of Jesus and other things they wish they could, I allowed the last meeting of my historical Jesus class to be completely open, with no questions or perspectives off the table. It included questions about my own faith. One question that I thought was particularly interesting was the student who asked me whether... Read more

Jury Duty and the Historical Jesus

Last updated on: July 21, 2016 at 11:26 pm By James F. McGrath

The first two days of this week, I was selected for jury service. This was my first time selected. I wished I could have recorded some of the ways that the lawyers explained the criteria of evidence during the voir dire, explaining that “beyond reasonable doubt” doesn’t mean “beyond all doubt” and other things that I have regularly discussed in relation to matters of history. I suspect that it was largely because of my academic area that I was a... Read more

Problem Solved

Last updated on: April 27, 2016 at 7:22 am By James F. McGrath

Sometimes science does indeed offer a clear answer to a supposedly insoluble problem… Read more

Is This Gonna Be On The Test?

Last updated on: July 21, 2016 at 11:28 pm By James F. McGrath

A nice bit of end-of-semester Bible humor, courtesy of Pictoral Theology. I imagine that whether you envisage Jesus as responding by saying “Yes” or “Study for life, not just the test,” says a lot about both your theology and your view of education… Read more

A Service of Sacred Music and Rock Prayers

Last updated on: April 25, 2016 at 6:19 am By James F. McGrath

The service yesterday, featuring rock music, went well, I thought. It was recorded, and so I thought I would share it for those who may be interested, in particular those who wished they could have been there but were unable to. My notes and an outline of the service follow below the videos. Order of Service – Crooked Creek Baptist Church – April 24th, 2016 Announcements and Call to Worship Hymn: “O Sacred Head Now Wounded” Reflection 1:... Read more

Jerusalem Virtual Library

Last updated on: July 21, 2016 at 11:28 pm By James F. McGrath

Via The Ancient World Online, I was reminded about the Jerusalem Virtual Library, which includes a wide array of historic photos, maps, illustrations, documents, and other materials related to Jerusalem. I hope you enjoy exploring it and find it to be a useful resource! Read more

Is This Going To Be On The Test?

Last updated on: April 23, 2016 at 6:28 am By James F. McGrath

This PHD Comic is really brilliant. That you should not address a professor as “Yo” is not something that is ever on a formal test. It is thus the kind of thing that is missed by the student who thinks that the point of education is to study for the tests. Your future employers will more likely be impressed that you tried to learn another language and got a “C” than that you stuck to easy material or one specific area of... Read more

Always Give 100% at Work

Last updated on: April 22, 2016 at 5:58 am By James F. McGrath

HT Marc Cortez. It is funny, but it also makes me think about my own career path. I teach on subjects that I find fascinating. And so I am always reading on the subjects I teach on, even “for pleasure,” and conversely, I always turn things I love – such as music or science fiction – into things that I teach on, and thus “work.” Read more

The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy: The Search for the Print Version

Last updated on: April 21, 2016 at 2:49 pm By James F. McGrath

The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy: The Search for Socrates is now available in print. It includes my chapter, “A God Needs Compassion, but Not a Starship: Star Trek’s Humanist Theology.” Read more

Consensus is Part of the Scholarly Method

Last updated on: April 21, 2016 at 6:28 am By James F. McGrath

An article in Real Clear Science highlighted that consensus-building is part of the scientific method. Alex Bezerow writes: I like to imagine the scientific method as resembling the solar system. The planets, traveling in perfect orbits, represent the pillars of the scientific method: Observations, hypotheses, predictions/experiments, and continuous refinements. What holds all of this together — the inward tug of gravity in this analogy — is consensus. We often call it “theory,” but that’s just a different word for consensus. Every... Read more