The above a cappella rendition of Lorde’s song “Royals” has been getting a lot of attention. What some may not know is that the singers are Butler University students, connected with the female a cappella group Freshly Brewed, which I had the privilege to be the faculty sponsor for when Kathleen Marvin started it back in 2004. One of the great things about being an educator is seeing where the people you teach, and the organizations and movements they start,... Read more
Neil Godfrey posted about peer-reviewed journals and how the peer review process is imperfect, if not indeed deeply flawed, and thus even problematic studies manage to get through into peer-reviewed journals in the sciences. And if that is true in the sciences, surely it is also true in the domain of history. And so what does that tell us? That most mythicist writings are so very bad, so obviously flawed, so profoundly bizarre, that they cannot make it past even... Read more
In searching for images to go in my previous post about the Gospel of Mark, I came across two great images, both of which relate to puzzling aspects of that Gospel, and both of which were shared by Deane Galbraith in reviewing Maurice Casey’s wonderful volume, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of his Life and Teaching. The first relates to Casey’s proposal that the Gospel of Mark as we now know it was a draft of a work... Read more
Michael Kruger wrote a blog post about Jesus as God in the Gospel of Mark. His argument is that, in the Scriptural citations towards the beginning of the Gospel (which the author of Mark, or the Greek text he draws upon, actually rewords), texts which in Isaiah and Malachi refer to the preparation of the coming of God are applied to John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. Thus, Jesus is God. When I was a conservative Evangelical, I confess... Read more
Rod Dreher shared a challenge aimed at combating religious illiteracy: offer a list of three books – and no more than three – that will together give an adequate introduction to a particular religion. Other bloggers have already responded. So which would I choose for my own liberal Christian tradition? There is a real sense in which, if the aim is to provide a history of this tradition, then my choices would be different. But if the aim is to introduce... Read more
I recently shared a recording of a song I wrote, “Creed,” from when we performed it in church. I’ve now added the lyrics in closed captioning, and so thought I should mention that. Read more
J. K. Doyle shared (and offered a few critical comments about) the aboveimage that has apparently been circulating among those proud to be pretending to be Christians, and perhaps also among a small number of people who are as sincerely misguided about what being a Christian is as they are anout the use of scare quotes. Holy Sprit? Angles? Poor spelling in a post whose overall message is “I don’t need none of that high-falutin learnin'”? I would love to... Read more
Hemant Mehta shared the above church sign, asking for captions. Mine as a liberal Christian would be something like, “I love it when Christians have enough faith, courage, and moral conviction to disagree with the Bible.” Read more
From PHD Comics Read more
The blog Friendly Atheist (sparked by an article by Sam Harris) recently discussed the Pew Forum statistic concerning the number of Muslims who say that suicide bombing is never justified. There are lots of different ways that one could take this. One thing that is noteworthy is how different the answers are depending on the location of the answerer. The other is how this answer is liable to be construed because it is Muslims who are being asked. I think a... Read more
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