The quote above comes from a post Morgan Guyton wrote, with the title “When “the Bible is perfectly clear” becomes the reason it can’t teach us anything.” Here is a longer excerpt to provide more context: I have a hunch that the “perfect clarity” many Christians talk about with regard to the Bible happens in a very different context than listening for God speak into your discipleship journey. For me, the Bible is always “perfectly clear” when I’m pulling together... Read more
Rob Zaretsky’s piece in Inside Higher Ed proposes trigger warnings for a number of pieces of classic literature. Given my field, I particularly appreciated his treatment of the Book of Job: Anonymous’ “The Book of Job” “Are you sure this is part of the Bible?” asked many respondents, who also exhibited intense unease with God’s actions, as they did with Job’s questions. The mounting suspense in waiting for God to reply adversely impacted many students (as did the irritation factor supplied... Read more
Butler University has created several new marketing videos. I love that they integrate the skills, courses, and programs of the Liberal Arts, and in the first of the two videos below (click through for more), one of the students who went on my first trip to Israel and the West Bank in 2012 mentions that experience! Read more
Although it has no doctrinal creed as a condition of membership, the Progressive Christian Alliance (whose Facebook page I’ve recently begun to help curate) does have this statement of faith: We believe in God, whose love is the source of all life and the desire of our lives whose love was given a human face in Jesus of Nazareth whose love was crucified by the evil that waits to enslave us all and whose love, defeating even death, is our... Read more
When people ask why you make fun of young-earth creationists, there is no better place to point them to than the article on the Answers in Genesis website about Mars. It concludes: While data from both Spirit and Opportunity support a catastrophic model of Martian geology, Opportunity has shown that Meridiani Planum was catastrophically flooded at about the same time as the other catastrophic events on Mars, with these events occurring about the same time as the Genesis Flood. Even... Read more
The episode “The Monster of Peladon“sees the Doctor return to Peladon. The daughter of king Peladon (whom the Doctor met in the earlier episode “The Curse of Peladon“) is now reigning. Superstition is a major focus in the episode, the plot of which revolves around a rebellion by miners and political machinations that are instigating and using those popular forces to their own ends. People with power or influence are getting people united against a common threat, in a manner... Read more
The British Library blog has a number of images of medieval scribes at work, with some commentary explaining the tools they used and other aspects of what is depicted. While the development of the writing desk does seem to represent a difference between them and their more ancient predecessors, there are still aspects of their activity which are closer to what early copyists of texts such as those in the Bible would have done, than to what we are familiar... Read more
I recently came across the text of a lecture by New Testament scholar Richard Burridge, with the title “Being Biblical? Slavery, Sexuality, and the Inclusive Community.” His argument is that we need to look carefully at episodes from the past, such as when defenders of the Bible’s authority defended slavery as part of that endeavor, so that we may have insight into when issues may seem to be similarly conjoined in our own time, in ways that may lead later... Read more
I saw this prayer on Reddit, with the headline “Kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace…”: Morning Prayer: For Peace: Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that in tranquillity your dominion may increase until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns... Read more
I mentioned a few posts about Bart Ehrman’s recent book yesterday, and there are already a couple more. Larry Hurtado offered some amendments to his post, in light of feedback from Bart Ehrman himself. And Ken Schenck blogged about chapter 3 and whether Jesus thought he was God. In it he writes: I think we can safely assume that, in his public persona, Jesus did not go around telling everyone he was the Messiah, let alone God. But one must... Read more
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