I love my Sunday school class. Not only did they enthusiastically opt for a study of women in the Gospels in conjunction with me working to put the finishing touches on my book, What Jesus Learned From Women, and not only have some of them volunteered to read a draft of the manuscript and provide feedback, but they continue to help me learn as well. We began by tackling the preliminary topic of Jesus learning, regardless of whether it was from... Read more
Another composer that YouTube kindly introduced me to is Enjott Schneider . As soon as it offers me something that I really profoundly enjoy, I go looking for more, and usually look specifically to see if they’ve done anything with the Bible. Enjott Schneider most certainly has, including but not limited to Sieben letzte Worte Jesu (Seven Last Words of Jesus) shared above. I’ve looked for some of the others but did not find recordings of them, never mind recordings... Read more
I was profoundly disturbed to see someone I know share a post on social media comparing those who tear down statues of confederate generals and monuments of slave traders in the present day to the Nazis in WWII Germany. There is a lot that is being said on social media at the moment that is deeply troubling and deserving of a direct response. That’s what I try to offer here. I want to jump right in to the topic with... Read more
Bob MacDonald is launching a project to turn the melodies that emerge from the text of the Hebrew Bible when one uses Haïk-Vantoura’s approach to interpreting the cantillation marks, into English language settings appropriate for liturgical use in churches. He isn’t considering this a formal composition contest, but he does have plans for selected compositions to be performed, published, and/or recorded. The compositions will not simply be arrangements of existing text and melody: there is room both for melodic adaptation and... Read more
Prof. D. Stephen Long writes: I think it appropriate that reasonable people of faith begin to refer to Trump as antichrist. I don’t come to that conclusion lightly…The obvious contradiction between Trump and his administration’s response to white supremacists and to those protesting on behalf of black lives demonstrates a demonic force at work that must be named by all of us who at baptism pledged to resist sin, death, and the devil, “the spiritual forces of wickedness,” or “the... Read more
I’ve mentioned before my interest in writing a book that explores something like “a year of living justly.” You can read about it in an earlier post on my blog. My thoughts returned to the idea again recently after reading a post by Chris Bateman exploring supermarkets as part of our human cyborg existence. Here’s a sample from the post: To ask about the moral and behavioural effects of supermarkets is to face the general condition of the contemporary cyborg... Read more
Maximus Nyseen writes: There are two dominant heresies alive in American Christianity today, which would be fundamentalism and nationalism. Fundamentalism advocates an entirely unhistorical theological viewpoint that the Bible is a scientific textbook, and that any scientific hypothesis, theory, or fact that “opposes” some supposed scientific principle believed to be written in the Bible must be rejected as some sort of atheist attack on the faith. This is a fairly modern heresy, one that entirely rejects historical theological discovery and exegetical... Read more
Paul Cornell has written a few very short stories to help you make it through the lockdowns and quarantines that you may be experiencing. The first is “The Shadow Passes” and is in text form. The second, “Shadow of a Doubt,” will immediately remind you of Christian discussions of repentance and the idea that “all you need to do is say sorry.” The third is called “The Shadow in the Mirror” and gives another perspective on the story. The discussion... Read more
Here is the title and abstract for my presentation in the upcoming Enoch Seminar Conference Online: “Deity, Devil, Demiurge: The Shared Origins of Monotheism, the Problem of Evil, and ‘Gnosticism'” James F. McGrath, Butler University When it comes to the strands of ancient religion traditionally referred to as ‘Gnosticism’ and their most distinctive characteristics, the attempt to explain the existence of evil by positing an inferior creator is far less puzzling than that these traditions consistently identify the God of... Read more
This is the 50th episode of the ReligionProf Podcast, and so perhaps a momentous occasion that ought to be marked! The podcast, as you presumably know, has been on hiatus for the summer and was shifting to being occasional rather than weekly or bi-weekly. But there was a conversation I wanted to have and to share with you, and even the pandemic couldn’t prevent it. You might wonder why a pandemic would prevent a podcast episode from being recorded, given... Read more
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