The time is up for entries in the giveaway – now it is time to pick winners! Using Random.org the following comments and commenters have been selected at random as the winners of one of the three sets of Theologian Trading Cards with a signed card each: 5 Kevin A. Wilson (Kevin Vanhoozer signed card) 29 “James” (Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza signed card) 94 Kevin Fiske (N. T. Wright signed card) Please get in touch quickly via e-mail to jfmcgrat AT butler... Read more
Bob Cargill created and shared this checklist: I think Bob is right about some things and sort of wrong about some things. I think he is right when he says that the skewed prioritization has to change, and that there is reason to be hopeful that it is indeed changing. I think he is sort of wrong when he placed God at the top of the list with a check next to it. Of course, conservative Christians of the sort... Read more
And here’s a reminder that not all of Jesus’ followers sound like that. Some, I think, sound rather more like he did. A friend shared this quote on Facebook: praying together as a class in school isn’t christian. and the pledge of allegiance is NOT christian. and plastering bible verses on walls of public buildings is not christian. and nativity scenes in the public square is not christian. saying “merry christmas” is not christian. and reading the bible out loud... Read more
David Hayward has created and shared a cartoon that illustrates a central message in both nativity stories in the New Testament. Those who were “invited” to the birth or infancy of Jesus were the marginalized, the excluded. Somehow the powerful and dominant have managed to co-opt these stories and treat them as their own, seemingly without realizing how subversive their message is, and what its implications are for them. More than that, some seem to think that being a follower... Read more
Here’s a spoof version of a classic Christmas carol that I wrote some years ago, sarcastically and satirically highlighting what happens when fundamentalists shift the focus of their Christianity from God and Jesus onto other matters such as the age of the earth: We wish you a Merry Creationmas We wish you a Merry Creationmas We wish you a Merry Creationmas And a happy new year (the first of which was less than 10,000 years ago) Don’t stop at the... Read more
The “mousetrap argument” is popular among proponents of Intelligent Design. A mousetrap is supposedly irreducibly complex and thus evidence of direct design by a cosmic Designer. But what we find in real-life organisms is evidence of evolutionary kluges, solutions cobbled together from whatever was already there to work with. The image made me smile as it seems to put the contrast between the claims of Intelligent Design, and biological realities as seen and studied by mainstream biology, into a nice... Read more
Get it? He spent three days in Wales? 🙂 I really enjoy and appreciate this cartoon because it does some subversive things. Fox News is notorious for its distortion and bias, and yet it is popular among people who claim to value truth and being “Biblical.” And so the cartoon subversively asks what if behind some of the stories in the Bible there is similar bias and distortion? In the case of Jonah, I don’t think this is at all what... Read more
The blog +972 shared the news earlier today that the Israeli embassy in Ireland had posted a derogatory status update about Palestinians, in connection with Jesus and Mary, on their Facebook page: A thought for Christmas…If Jesus and mother Mary were alive today, they would, as Jews without security, probably end up being lynched in Bethlehem by hostile Palestinians. Just a thought……. This started off a meme, as such things tend to in Israel. Here’s an example (by Itamar Shaltiel):... Read more
Here’s the latest minisode prequel to the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special: HT IO9 Read more
That’s not “job” as in employment in the title of this post, but “Job” as in “the Book of…” Someone asked me on Facebook recently what I thought the message of Job is and how it relates to the tragedy in Connecticut. I said that the Book of Job has a number of points that it conveys. But in light of the recent comments by right-wing Christians (which I’ve already commented on more than once), I want to highlight one... Read more
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