Today there was a large sack, much like I would expect Santa to use, sitting in front of my door. But it was blue, and had “Royal Mail” written on it. It was several copies of the new book Time and Relative Dimensions in Faith: Religion and Doctor Who which I co-edited with Andrew Crome. 366 pages chock full of wibbly wobbly timey wimey Whovian goodness. TARDIF has arrived! Read more
A cartoon from several years ago has been getting attention today. I shared it once before, but without the second part. And so here it is again, from the cartoon series “Home on the Strange“: “Who is your savior?” This actually connects up directly with the topic that we discussed in my class on religion and science fiction today. What makes a being worthy of worship? If it turned out that aliens created our universe, or parted the sea and... Read more
I had my attention drawn today to a blog post by Donald Miller, “My Problem with the Word ‘Biblical’.” In it he writes: And so this idea that the Bible presents a comprehensive guide for relationships that is Biblical is, in fact, not a Biblical idea. Nor is it “biblical” for us to use the Bible as a guide to understand science. Or psychology or finances or a guide for how to build a church. In fact, our desire to use the... Read more
Someone recently asked me about why Jesus’ death was understood by Christians as a resurrection rather than a “bodily translation to heaven” or something of the sort. It’s a fascinating question, and so I thought I would share some of my answer here. The reference in Jude to a Jewish tradition about Michael and the Devil disputing over Moses’ body is presumably relevant, as are Enoch and Elijah, in addition to the Testament of Job. In all these cases, there... Read more
I saw this on Facebook. It is right at the intersection of religion and science fiction. But I am not sure what to make of it. Also at the intersection of Star Wars and the Bible is this: Read more
Via the Patheos Progressive Christian Channel on Facebook. Read more
Scott Bailey shared the promotional video for the upcoming series on the History Channel, Bible Secrets Revealed, on YouTube. I do not think that it will change your mind about everything you think about the Bible. But they really did interview some of the world’s leading scholars – and also me! Read more
Jeri Lofland shared her testimony about the impact of Ken Ham on her life, and how it led to her current atheism, on the blog Heresy in the Heartland, in a post with the title “Ken Ham: The Evolution of a Bully.” It was since picked up by the blog Homeschoolers Anonymous. UPDATE: The above image seemed to provide an even more relevant accompaniment to this post than the one I originally used. I found it online on Goodreads, shared... Read more
Yaholo Hoyt wrote a post about “God boxes” and this part really jumped out at me: I have met many Christians who feel like accepting others “as they are” without converting them is somehow betraying what they believe. But what good are your beliefs if they simply keep you away from others? If your beliefs do not empower you to love others, then they have no value at all, no matter how “right” they are. Accepting others does not invalidate... Read more
Jeremy Myers wrote a blog post “Biblical Illiteracy is Not a Problem.” I really wanted to be able to disagree, given the title. But I don’t. The point of his post is that, if Christians knew only small snippets of the Bible – “Love God” and “Love your neighbor” – and actually practiced it, that would be OK, even if they did not know more. From this perspective, it is not illiteracy, but refusal to put into practice what we... Read more
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