Evangelicals vs. the Commandments

Last updated on: September 5, 2020 at 7:32 pm By James F. McGrath

Evangelicalism’s representatives tend to be characterized by two major characteristics: loud denunciation of the sins of others combined with the revelation sooner or later that those individuals were themselves living lives that are sinful by their own standards. Sometimes they are the very same sins they denounced, but not always. They have a profoundly ironic penchant for pointing to Romans 1 and denouncing same-sex relationships through appeal to that text, not seeming to realize the entire point of Paul’s rhetoric... Read more

Fatima: Religious Experience in a Secular World

Last updated on: September 4, 2020 at 7:30 pm By James F. McGrath

I planned to talk about religious experience in a blog post already. It is something of profound personal significance and interest to me, something that came up in a number of outlets that I follow or in other things that people drew to my attention, and was also brought up by a Facebook friend in a question. Then the movie Fatima was released, and I knew it was time to finish off this post. The movie is worthwhile watching for... Read more

Locked Out

Last updated on: August 31, 2020 at 10:13 pm By James F. McGrath

As though teaching online in a pandemic were not stressful enough, I recently found myself locked out of my home PC. The details are probably not worth going into. Suffice it to say that the PIN for Windows 10 stopped working and the admin privileges of my only account on the computer likewise disappeared. It was much simpler than you might imagine or hope to find a way to essentially hack into the PC, create a new administrator account, and... Read more

#CFP Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film and Culture

Last updated on: August 31, 2020 at 6:31 pm By James F. McGrath

Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film and Culture A (Virtual) Interdisciplinary Conference January 14 – 15, 2021 Venue: Cappadocia University, Mustafapaşa Campus, 50420 Ürgüp/Nevşehir/Turkey (Virtual-Microsoft Teams) Keynote speaker: TBA Description: “The abandoned towers in the distance are like the coral of an ancient reef- bleached and colourless, devoid of life. There still is life, however. Birds chirp; sparrows, they must be…Do they notice that quietness, the absence of motors? If so, are they happier?”... Read more

#CFP Climate Change as Reflected in Science Fiction, Film and World Literature Religion

Last updated on: August 31, 2020 at 6:30 pm By James F. McGrath

A call for papers for a roundtable: Climate Change as Reflected in Science Fiction, Film and World Literature: Annual Northeast Modern Language Association 52nd Annual Convention Philadelphia, PA March 11-14, 2021 Marriott Downtown Philadelphia Climate Change as Reflected in Science Fiction, Film and World Literature Submit proposals to: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/18551 Climate change is an important issue that has become a frequent topic in twentieth as well as twenty-first century literature and film. From science fiction of the past to the present-day speculative... Read more

Jesus, Popular Opinion, and Scholarship

Last updated on: August 31, 2020 at 10:04 pm By James F. McGrath

Let me begin with an article in Newsweek about how Americans view Jesus: 52 Percent of Americans Say Jesus Isn’t God but Was a Great Teacher, Survey Says. The article is poorly written and poorly researched in many respects. it seems to suggest that the Bible teaches that Jesus is God, and the wording is clunky and unclear at times. But the shift in public opinion that the article draws attention to is rather remarkable. Next, Randal Rauser tweeted about mythicism:... Read more

Spirit as Software

Last updated on: August 31, 2020 at 5:34 am By James F. McGrath

I am delighted that 3 Quarks Daily drew attention to this great video by Philip Clayton on emergence. I was really struck by Steve Wiggins’ post “Upgraded at Last.” As he talked about our inability to take a computer hard drive or similar storage device, look at it, and find a document or photo (or indeed anything meaningful), I found myself pondering the way some draw reductionistic conclusions about God and/or the soul, purportedly based on science and observation. One can look... Read more

From Dendrotheology to Dune by Way of Wakanda

Last updated on: August 29, 2020 at 7:55 am By James F. McGrath

Here’s a variety of things that I want to highlight, whether in connection with my course on Religion and Science Fiction or at least closely even if tangentially related to it. First, let me draw attention to a short story that is quite wonderful and theologically rich. It is by Philip Purser-Hallard and is called “Dendrotheology.” I’ve put it on my syllabus for my Religion and Science Fiction class this semester, and if you saw my earlier post in which I... Read more

#CFP Fantasy, Theology, and the Imagination

Last updated on: August 24, 2020 at 3:06 pm By James F. McGrath

Call for Papers: Fantasy, Theology, and the Imagination Edited by Austin M. Freeman, Andrew D. Thrasher, and Fotini Toso In the world of High Fantasy, authors create fictional worlds that often reflect human religiosity and theological themes in new and creative ways. Through theological and religious analyses of high fantasy and fantasy series, the editors invite paper proposals for a volume on the intersection of fantasy and theology. While the editors acknowledge that fantasy has roots extending backwards past the... Read more

Prof. Murphy’s Laws

Last updated on: August 25, 2020 at 10:57 am By James F. McGrath

I made up an academic version of one of Murphy’s famous laws in a Facebook comment recently, and realized there is a need for a fuller collection of this sort of thing. And so I started making a longer list. Here is what I have come up with so far: If reviewer #2 can reject your article, reviewer #2 will reject your article. If you try to write for everyone, no one will like it. The tenure guidelines are always... Read more