YouTube introduced me to the music of William C. White, and whenever I am introduced to a new composer whose music I enjoy and find interesting, as a rule I usually look to see what else they have composed. In addition to this having the potential to lead to the discovery of more new music that I will enjoy listening to, it also offers the possibility of discovering new musical settings of biblical texts, which I am always on the... Read more
It turned out to work perfectly that we were due to continue talking about the Lord’s Prayer yesterday. The “Our Father” on Mother’s Day makes for a great chance to talk about the gendering of God and the appropriateness of addressing God as Mother. We began with the significance of Jesus’ use of the Aramaic word “Abba.” I emphasized (as I have before) that Abba does not mean “daddy.” It is simply the Aramaic word for (the) father. So what... Read more
The last of my guest posts on Bart Ehrman’s blog about my book What Jesus Learned from Women appeared yesterday. Given that Bart Ehrman and I share an interest in promoting mainstream scholarship over against the misrepresentation of texts and history by conservative Christians and atheist mythicists, I had initially been inclined to start my guest post about Junia on Ehrman’s blog with that as a bridge/intro. If Paul had a relative who was a founding member of the Jesus movement,... Read more
A call for chapter proposals for an edited collection on controversy, conflict and complicity in fandom that came to my attention via Facebook. ***Call for papers and contributions for an edited collection*** Participatory Culture Wars: Controversy, Conflict and Complicity in Fandom Edited by Dr Simone Driessen, Bethan Jones, Dr Benjamin Litherland. It has become increasingly clear that fandoms and participatory culture are sites of controversy, conflict and even complicity, complicating earlier assessments that sought to celebrate creativity, collegiality, and community.... Read more
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Esau McCaulley’s Reading While Black. In it he offers a wonderful discussion of Psalm 137, musical settings of which I have mentioned here before. After helpfully categorizing the demand for mirth from those one has exiled and imprisoned, whose children and relatives one has murdered, as “psychological warfare,” McCaulley presents the presence of Psalm 137 in the canon as authorizing the oppressed to express their rage and hand it to God. It doesn’t authorize... Read more
My fellow academics, here is just what you need at this conclusion of an extremely challenging academic year: an opportunity to turn your attention to something that you do for pleasure, namely writing fiction. Having just recently been notified that I had a short story accepted somewhere, I have been eager to share that news, and also to circulate a reminder about the open call for AcademFic. The journal accepts submissions from academics in fields other than creative writing, i.e. academics... Read more
I was really struck by a phrase that is used in Jill Hicks-Keeton’s insightful review of Beth Allison Barr’s book The Making of Biblical Womanhood. She suggests that “evangelical Christianity might be irredeemably patriarchal precisely because of its biblicism.” The precise wording of this phrase (typical of Hicks-Keeton’s remarkable ability of nuancing things with amazing precision and eloquence that eludes most of us scholars) seems to get things precisely right, and to sum up what I consider key points in the... Read more
May the Fourth Be With You! I hope regular blogging will resume tomorrow on the Revenge of the 5th… Read more
Classes are over. The semester is winding up. Last assignments to grade continue to flow in. But the end is not merely in sight, not merely nigh in some vague apocalyptic sense that might force later reinterpretations to justify it not materializing even millennia later. It is only days away, and nothing can stop it. There is still frantic work to do in the time remaining. But hope for what comes after can often help sustain us through a final... Read more
Time for another collection of articles and other links related to the intersection of technology, ethics, and religion. I suppose the recent Tesla crash and whether any human was driving is the place to start. Free article from Giulia Evolvi: “Religion, New Media, and Digital Culture” Katharine Hayhoe on Evangelicals and climate change Pure mathematics and writing come out of the same creative space https://luthscitech.org/covalence-for-april-pseudoscience-is-not-new-but-it-is-still-making-news/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/22/in-our-hurry-to-conquer-nature-and-death-we-have-made-a-new-religion-of-science/ Microsoft’s recent military contract French military uses robot dog New York Police Department Deploys... Read more
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