From the blog post at Land of Lost Content about Peter Dickinson’s Mass of the Apocalypse: The most challenging piece on this CD is the Mass of the Apocalypse, which was commissioned for the 300th anniversary of the radical Anglican St James’s Church, Piccadilly. It received its premiere there on 15 July 1984. It is certainly not a work that could be used in any liturgical context and can only be performed as a ‘concert piece’. Structurally, it is a mish-mash of words collated... Read more
The ReligionProf Podcast is back! In this episode I talk with Brandon Hawk about his new book, The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Nativity of Mary. I’m still debating whether I should try to keep up the pace of having an episode every week, should make it every other week or monthly, or should just do them as often or infrequently as happens to work out. I assume that podcasts are like blogs, and that people will for the most... Read more
I found an email in my junk email folder that is about the Book of Revelation, and I thought I would share it. This kind of stuff is nothing new, but often interesting, and so I thought a public record and discussion of it could be worthwhile, if only for the purposes of debunking and education. Hi, This is a very important public service announcement concerning our future well being. I found this information very interesting and should be... Read more
There is a lot that one can write about the music composed especially for Doctor Who. But there is also a lot to be written about the already-existing music that the show has included at times. For instance, Anton Bruckner is a composer whose music I love. Yet somehow I was not consciously aware of the fact that part of his Symphony No.7 (which I can immediately recognize) is incorporated into Part 5 of “The Mind Robber,” an episode from the... Read more
Rick Wakeman has recorded several albums that intersect with the Bible, as well as more broadly with theology, and I’m looking forward to exploring them in the book I’m working on about theology and progressive rock. The New Gospels is referred to as “a modern oratorio.” Wakeman’s website tells the story of how that project came about. Here’s a snippet: The New Gospels evolved because Rick Wakeman was asked to perform at an organ recital to raise money for the Camberley United... Read more
This song emerged out of the intersection of two of my book projects. I shared it at the end of a service I led and preached in, the sermon text being the story of the Samaritan Woman. I plan to share a video of the sermon followed by the song recorded during the service. But in the meantime, here is a recording of rehearsing the song. The lyrics are included below. Come Where The Healing Waters Flow Music and... Read more
Extrapolating Nostalgia: Special issue of Science Fiction Studies We invite papers on the role of nostalgia as a structure of feeling that animates speculative, utopian, and (post)apocalyptic texts across media. Although there has been increasing critical attention to the role of memory in these genres, nostalgia is a neglected topic. We seek papers that explore nostalgia as affect and motif in the genre, following Jameson’s description of sf as a mode of “apprehending the future as history” (1982), while discussing seemingly... Read more
It was great having Tripp Fuller visit Indianapolis recently. It was almost ten years ago when I appeared as a guest on his podcast. Early Christian Monotheism with James McGrath: Homebrewed Christianity 68 Back then he was still numbering them. I’m not sure when he stopped but after the first thousand I suppose it probably makes sense to stop numbering them and just name them instead. I feel like back then, we weren’t even calling them “podcasts” yet, although it... Read more
The Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan seeks scholars for a residential fellowship in 2021-2022 to explore the challenges of diversity in Second Temple Judaism. Diversity of ethnicity, religion, social status, gender, age, and ability was as much a feature of the ancient Mediterranean world as it is in the present. We aim to explore the diversity of religious, cultural, and political life during the period of the Second Temple, from after the Babylonian Exile... Read more
I’m really excited that Rob Orlando is coming back to Butler University. Hopefully there won’t be any sense of tension between continuing to draw attention to his new movie The Divine Plan, and continuing my series about his earlier movie, Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe (as well as its sequel that will be one of Rob’s next movies). Today’s clip from A Polite Bribe focuses on the identity of “the poor” whom Paul was supposed to remember in his agreement with the Jerusalem apostles.... Read more
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