Technology is powerful, complicated, and dangerous. A lot of people who signed up for an account on Ashley Madison (the website that bills itself as dating site for married people…as in, for people who are looking to have an affair) are shaking in their boots right now. The hackers who mined the data of 32 million (they claim) customers and former customers of the site have now fulfilled their promise/threat to post the leaked data. They did so yesterday, on... Read more
Elizabeth Johnson’s book, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, is one of the best and most important theology books written in the twentieth century. Given the recentness and significance of feminist theology, I would also suggest it’s one of the best Christian theology books of all time. The title will scare off more conservative Christians, but her tone is sensitive and her content respectful to the larger Christian tradition. In any case, I recently picked up... Read more
This post is my contribution to a Patheos book club discussion on spiritual healing occasioned by the release of Reba Riley’s memoir, Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome. A few years ago, when I taught a seminar for graduating seminary students, I required each of them to spend an hour reading “de-conversion narratives” on the website Ex-Christian.net. You can go straight to the testimonial articles here. The stories express a wide range of emotions. Traumatic experiences in the church or in their spiritual experiences... Read more
First, let’s just acknowledge that God is not literally male. Or female, for that matter. The historical flesh-and-blood Jesus was biologically male. No one (or hardly anyone) really disputes that. But God? YHWH? Yahweh? The Creator of the universe? The Alpha and the Omega? The omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent One? The Being-Than-Which-None-Greater-Can-Possibly-be-Conceived? The Uncaused Cause? Most theologians agree that God is not literally “sexed” and furthermore, we cannot assume that the language that we use to refer to God (even that... Read more
Yesterday Union University announced it will be withdrawing its membership from the CCCU (Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities). This move is precipitated by the announcement in July that two member schools (Eastern Mennonite University and Goshen College) were adopting LGBTQ inclusive hiring policies. The quickness of the decision contrasts with the CCCU’s determination to undergo a process of soliciting input from member schools’ presidents over a period of time this year, before making any determinations with respect the membership... Read more
When I posted about the move by two Mennonite universities to adopt a non-discrimination policy for LGBTQ employees, and the resulting conflict that might ensue in the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities (they are the first CCCU-member schools to adopt an inclusive policy), I had no idea how fast that conflict would happen. It was quick. It was on the agenda of a CCCU presidents conference in late July, with some college presidents threatening to leave the CCCU if... Read more
Probably the most common critique levied against evolutionary theory by creationists is the issues of “transitional species.” If Darwin’s theory is right and species transition into different species gradually and over long periods of time, why don’t we see more evidence of these transitional forms in the geological record? Or another way to put it: Why are there so many “gaps” between species, if all species are ultimately interconnected and can be traced back to a single life form? Michael... Read more
Intelligent Design (ID) has made a lot of headway in conservative Christian circles over the past number of years. ID theorists and proponents mount what appear (to the casual observer, anyway) to be sophisticated critiques of Darwinian evolution. ID is not new. It’s been around in some form for a very long time. Darwin himself ascribed to a variant of intelligent design theory before his empirical observations of nature led him to formulate the theory of biological evolution–and therefore to... Read more
Jon Stewart’s closing words last night were fitting. He warned us all to be on the lookout for “bullshit.” It’s all around us (and of course we all fall into bullshitting at one time or another). The best defense against bullshit, Stewart said, is vigilance. So, “if you see something, say something.” His advice reminded me of the book by the philosopher Harry Frankfurt called On Bullshit. Yes, there is a philosophy of “bullshit.” If you’d like a brief synopsis of the... Read more
Along with millions of others of viewers, I’m going to miss Jon Stewart. At least we still have Colbert. And we can hope that he won’t lose his edgy punch when he moves over to the major network. And Larry Wilmore is doing a damn fine job in Colbert’s vacated spot. But Stewart was the king of this era’s version of late night comedy/satire. A recent New York Times article described his timely rise to the top: Since Mr. Stewart,... Read more
Unsystematic Theology
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