Adam and Suzanne discuss Ascension Day. Why do we ignore the ascension of Jesus? Adam and Suzanne don’t know, but they do know Christians shouldn’t ignore it. The ascension means that Jesus is still lord of our lives, and is lord in the spirit of service. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. Second, the story of the ascension in Acts tells us to stop looking at the heavens and get to work! Go forward in the name... Read more
The horror of last Friday’s murders at UCSB has us asking the all-important question: Why did this happen? Of course, we ask the same question whenever violent tragedies like this grip the nation. Our first answer is usually the same one provided by Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown just after Friday’s rampage: “It’s obviously the work of a madman.” I wish the answers to tragic shootings were that easy. Eliot Rodgers had psychological issues, no doubt, but it would... Read more
We need to stop celebrating Memorial Day. I had lunch with my dad on Memorial Day. We had soup and salad. Unfortunately, I did not take pictures of our lunch. Because I’m on Facebook, I know how exciting pictures of lettuce and chicken tortilla soup can be… But even more exciting was our Memorial Day conversation, which centered on our recent travels. I told my dad about my family’s Memorial Day weekend trip to the Redwood Forest in northern California... Read more
Matthew Vines has done us an incredible service by writing his book God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships. Matthew’s book is an articulate and engaging argument for Christians to support same-sex relationships. It is a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in debate over Christianity and the support of same-sex relationships. I appreciate this book for primarily two reasons. First, Matthew presents scholarship on the topic in a thoughtful... Read more
In this video Suzanne and Adam discuss Pope Francis’s prayer over the weekend on the goodness of creation. If creation is so good, then why did things go wrong so quickly? Does the Genesis 1 story have any truth to tell us? They also discussed Suzanne’s recent presentation at the Faith Forward Conference and the importance of Christian education in teaching the nonviolence and love of God. Then they discussed the importance of ritual and why Protestants need to reclaim... Read more
How is technology changing contemporary spirituality? That’s the question Patheos asked in its recent Public Square conversation. The irony that modern technology is allowing us to have the conversation over the Internet should be apparent to everyone. There is no doubt that technology is changing our spirituality. Humans are able to learn about different cultural, religious, and spiritual practices like never before. For better or worse, there is a deep spiritual aspect to the Internet. Discussing that spirituality in terms... Read more
No topic is more important today than how to deal with violence, and Cesáreo Bandera’s book A Refuge of Lies: Reflections on Faith and Literature provides important insights about the truth of human violence. Dr. Andrew McKenna, Professor of French Language and Literature at Loyola University, recently joined us for a chat about A Refuge of Lies. Andrew wrote a review of the book for the Colloquium on Violence and Religion Bulletin, which you can read on page 8 here. In the... Read more
How do you defeat Satan? That was the question the University of Harvard had to answer on Monday night when the Harvard Extension School’s Cultural Studies Club planned a Satanic “Black Mass” at the university. The Harvard community, led by Harvard president Drew Faust, was outraged by the Black Mass. Faust addressed the situation by stating, “The ‘black mass’ had its historical origins as a means of denigrating the Catholic Church; it mocks a deeply sacred event in Catholicism, and... Read more
Adam is heading off to his new home in Eugene today. I have been in denial about this since last year when I he told me about it. It’s strange how hard change is — I am going to miss having him right next door in our adjacent offices, when I can just yell out “A-DAM” whenever I need him for an edit, a help with some social media mystery or some other tech glitch. We have edited each others... Read more
There are two related misconceptions about what mimetic theory says about being human: that (1) we are inherently violent and (2) unavoidably slavish imitators, incapable of individual or original expression. Mimetic theory, a theory of violence and imitation, says nothing of the sort, in fact it leads to the opposite conclusions. The problems arise because of misconceptions about violence and imitation that most of us bring with us, clouding our ability to see the ways in our preconceptions are being... Read more
Teaching Nonviolent Atonement
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In