Mythicism All Around?

Last updated on: April 20, 2016 at 5:43 am By James F. McGrath

If you move in the circles of organized atheism, it is much as if you move in the circles of conservative Christianity: you can get the impression that certain ideas are getting lots of attention, when they are only being given attention by your group which organizes for precisely that to happen. Just like creationists, Richard Carrier (in a piece complaining about my blog post about Raphael Lataster’s disappointing article) writes “I know professors who won’t publicly admit they think... Read more

Where You Sit In Class

Last updated on: April 19, 2016 at 6:20 am By James F. McGrath

From PHD Comics. I think this is almost certainly true in large classrooms like that depicted. In smaller classrooms it still has the tendency to be this way, but not always. Perhaps students have figured out that, in a smaller non-tiered classroom, the professor’s eye is often above the front row students? This semester I have students sitting in the back who are constantly engaged in discussion. Except for when they are on Facebook, of course. Read more

A Service of “Sacred” Music/Rock Prayers

Last updated on: April 18, 2016 at 10:58 am By James F. McGrath

I’m not sure what to call the service that we’ve put together for next Sunday at Crooked Creek Baptist Church. But the service will feature a lot of music that we’ve never performed in church before, as well as several songs that we have included at least once. We’ll start with “O Sacred Head Now Wounded” and end with “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun.” Can you figure out the connection between those two songs? If so,... Read more

Words Cannot Describe

Last updated on: April 18, 2016 at 6:24 am By James F. McGrath

I thought I would make a meme from a question I asked someone in a theological conversation: how do we assess the relative adequacy of language used to refer to God, when all human language is inadequate? Read more

Philippians and Pharisees

Last updated on: April 17, 2016 at 5:53 am By James F. McGrath

I’m not sure why it never struck me before, but I just recently realized that Paul’s mention in Philippians about his being or having been a Pharisee ought to get more attention. Paul assumes that the Philippians know what a Pharisee is. Perhaps we can assume that he told them on some previous occasion. But it might also hint at two other possibilities – that he assumed they knew stories about the Pharisees and Jesus such as would appear later in the Gospels, or otherwise... Read more

Faith is not Certainty

Last updated on: April 16, 2016 at 6:32 am By James F. McGrath

A quote from Pete Enns’ blog post about Jesus’ lack of faith. Click through to read the rest of it. On this theme see further his recent book, The Sin of Certainty. Read more

God is a Question, Not an Answer

Last updated on: April 15, 2016 at 6:31 am By James F. McGrath

A recent New York Times piece referred to God as a question rather than an answer, and so it seemed appropriate to reshare the above image, which is based on things I said on this blog back in 2009 and more recently in 2013. Of related interest, see Pete Enns’ blog post on Jesus’ lack of faith, and Chuck McKnight on why he eventually abandoned inerrancy and accepted the Bible for what it is. Read more

Dustin Smith on the Evans-Carrier Debate

Last updated on: April 14, 2016 at 1:45 pm By James F. McGrath

Dustin Smith has shared his account of the debate that took place yesterday between Craig Evans and Richard Carrier. Click through to read it. Read more

Plural Christianity?

Last updated on: April 14, 2016 at 12:05 pm By James F. McGrath

Two versions of the flyer for this event, in PDF form, can be found online. It looks like it will be an interesting event. Grace Unlimited has done some really wonderful things at Butler, and so this upcoming event about Christian diversity should be fantastic. Read more

Privilege and Persecution

Last updated on: April 14, 2016 at 6:27 am By James F. McGrath

I spoke to a member of the Midwest regional Society of Biblical Literature recently, who told me that there had been a number of members who were angry about a petition that went around asking the organization to move its conference from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois. That school had not only at one point in the past engaged in censorship of a faculty member because of his view of evolution, but also has policies regarding same-sex relationships which... Read more