The service at my church yesterday focused on “Cloak Sunday.” Although it is “Palm Sunday,” the reading was from Luke’s Gospel, which has people strewing clothing before Jesus rather than palm branches. It is interesting to ask whether Luke was aware that the use of palms in the manner depicted would more naturally suggest a different feast than Passover, namely Sukkot – and whether in the transmission of the story, we have an event from another time and context being... Read more
An article in World News Daily suggests that archaeologists may have uncovered the Biblical city of Sodom. Apparently the city was destroyed by fire and brimstone, and archaeological excavations show that all of the family tombs in the city belonged to same-sex couples who were dressed in fabulous clothing with no clashing colors. This would fit well with conservative Christian depictions of ancient Sodom, although those depictions only begin to appear much later and are viewed with suspicion by many... Read more
The quote above comes from the conclusion of a post on David Williams' blog Brick by Brick about John Calvin's approach to Genesis: All too often it is assumed that a “traditional” or “conservative” reading of Genesis will be a literal reading and that anything else is but “liberal” pandering to Darwinism. This assumption is flatly false and is only kept alive by our evangelical amnesia as to what the Fathers, the Medieval Doctors, and the Reformers actually said. The... Read more
Hope I didn't ruin it for anyone. Even if this really was a spoiler for you, trust me, the story is still worth reading to the end… Read more
One of the reasons I focus so much attention on information literacy skills, and require students to not merely say “I found it on JSTOR,” is that it is important to know how to cope without resources that we normally rely on. The best example of this in our time is relying on Googling for answers, which can be an enormously helpful resource – until the problem you need to Google is about how to fix your internet… Read more
I saw this on Facebook, and it made me wonder whether this could lead to a more powerful restatement of the Golden Rule. We may forego our own needs, but we will often trample others in the interests of our own children. When we do that, we forget that those we trample are someone's children, and we are thus contributing to making the world a place where children are trampled. And so what if we did unto others – the... Read more
The quote comes from Melody McConnell on Facebook, when sharing a link to this article by Karl Giberson. I didn’t include her name in the image because I was concerned that it might be misunderstood either that the words in the quotation marks were her view, or that she was actually quoting rather than parodying the young-earth creationist viewpoint. Read more
In discussions of whether Jesus was married, two main options are usually considered. One is that Jesus had never married. But in that case, it is objected, Jesus was rather unusual, and so it is surprising that this is never explicitly explained or mentioned. The other is that Jesus was married. But in that case, it is objected, it is surprising that this is never explicitly mentioned, given the debates about marriage and discipleship. A third option is rarely mentioned.... Read more
Via Jeff Carter and Unvirtuous Abbey on Facebook Read more
Via Episcopal Church Memes on Facebook Read more
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