This New Yorker cartoon came to my attention via Hemant Mehta on Facebook. It often strikes me how few people notice the horror and brutality of the flood story in Genesis. It depicts God acting like an immature human being, one who would happily wipe out everyone else in order to have a bit of peace and quiet, or peace of mind, or whatever else it is that the self-centered person might desire. And that is not surprising, given that it is a reworking... Read more
Via Kissing Fish on Facebook. Read more
Dustin Smith has offered a response to Mike Bird’s recent post about Mark’s Christology. We also got a quote from Daniel Kirk which addressed Bird’s claims even before he made them. Someone suggested that that might place Daniel among the Prophets, but historically he has been included among the Writings… I am starting to think that, if I ever write a second edition of The Only True God, or a different larger book on Christology, I will need to spend time on... Read more
We must develop a program that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income. The quote comes from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech “Where Do We Go From Here?” That King was a social liberal is well known. That he was a theological liberal is less widely known. But having highlighted both those points in years past on Martin Luther King Day, I thought that today I would highlight his economic liberalism, which became increasingly radical until, towards the... Read more
Academic study focuses on the world of cause and effect, on evidence and probability. And so there has been much discussion of methodological naturalism in the sciences, at least among those who are disgruntled by the fact that the sciences don’t make room for God or provide evidence for God. The same discussion can be had in relation to the study of religion – and indeed, it might be wiser to speak of methodological naturalism in that context, too. But a... Read more
Most of you will be aware that I was on sabbatical last semester. My department administrator used the term “sabbatitude” at some point early in the semester, and I liked the term, and so I thought I would use it in the title of this post, since every blogger who gets a sabbatical inevitably must post a retrospective. I hope I had the right sabbatitude going into it, and have come out of the experience of my second sabbatical with... Read more
Mike Bird posted this on his blog, offering it as a summary of Mark’s Christology: The Marcan Jesus participates in the kyricentricity of Israel’s God. He is identified as a pre-existent heavenly figure who has come to earth, who carries divine authority, who embodies royal and priestly roles; and in his person, words, and deeds he manifests the holy presence, the redemptive purposes, and the cosmic power of the Lord of Israel. Very little of that comes explicitly from Mark, and... Read more
I was blown away when Joshua Kim, in a piece he wrote for Inside Higher Ed, answered a question about what is exciting in the future of education, and he answered in terms of the liberal arts. And so I’ve been meaning to share this quote, and a link to the article it is from, for a while now. Read more
I am delighted to share the news that J. R. Daniel Kirk, a friend and fellow scholar whose blog I’ve regularly linked to and interacted with here, has moved his blog to Patheos. You can find his first post in the new location here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology/2016/01/11/does-god-need-us/ Pay him a visit, add the feed to your subscriptions, and enjoy having him here as part of this site’s blogging conversations! In case you’ve forgotten who he is, here’s a quote I shared from him in meme... Read more
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