Category: Thinking Out Loud
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Continuity, or Denial?
Is “what happens at church” on most Sunday mornings more about “continuity” or more about “denial” of what’s going on outside of church?
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Help with Annotation
Originally published August 12, 2016. It seemed timely once again, alas. Context is everything. “I need your help with annotation.” “What do you have to annotate?” “English.” “What’s the assignment?” “Just to take notes. On Beowulf.”
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Prayer for Enduring Grading
May I never read another sentence with the adjective “heavy” or the adverb “heavily” in it, describing something that DOES NOT HAVE WEIGHT, EVEN METAPHORICALLY. Sighing. Heavily. Image: Stained glass windows at All Saints Church, Ripley, Yorkshire, by Tim Green from Bradford, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Life after Birth
One of the perennial questions of the humanities is “What is a good life?” Religious studies ends up in the College of the Humanities in some universities because religion is fully absorbed in answering that question. At least, that’s one way of looking at it. Some Christians think of Christianity as being primarily about “life…
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An Evidence Problem
Professor Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True, recently asked the people of faith who correspond with him from time to time to say what evidence they would accept for the non-existence or non-reality of God. His point is that he’s able to say what evidence he would accept for the existence or reality…
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“What It Means”
I’m sitting at the registration desk in the emergency room. The cheerful young lady on the other side of the Plexiglas barrier hands me a sheet of paper with a lot of words on it, and x’s by all the blank lines. “Initial four places and sign once,” she instructs. I skim the paragraphs. “I…
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Beyond the Jargon of Sentimentality
There must be a way to talk about Jesus Christ that is not nauseating and off-putting and meaningless. That’s real and honest and qualifies as communication. That rings true as a message for actual humans, who live here in this world. Surely. Image: NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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Insight
There was an argument, that went on for a long time, between Mary and Martha. “Relax, take it easy, everything is going to be fine.” “We’ve got a lot of work to do, and it needs to be done right, and not at the last minute.” “Worry is a waste of time.” “I’m not worrying,…
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A Quick Thought on Staying Non-Reactionary, Non-Defensive, and Non-Anxious
Two different articles from two wildly different authors that came across email a day or so ago seemed to speak to one another, which made me think. One came from Pete Enns, on the moment of insight that shaped his “life’s work of trying to understand the Bible rather than defend it,” the moment he…
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Truth or Consequences
I am old. Old enough to know that there are a lot of things I don’t know. But I have learned one thing by now: nothing good ever comes from lying. Nothing good comes in churches from lying about sexual misconduct. The people who think “the reputation of the church” – that is, the approval…
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Francis Bacon comments on today’s “Republicans”
… surely, the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold, that, when “Christ cometh,” he shall not “find faith upon the earth.” (Luke 18:8) Francis Bacon,…
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Rare Ingredients
Originally posted on Matters of Interpretation: Traditional 3 Kings, with a view of date palms, which produce dates, which are sometimes considered a rare ingredient. I grated orange zest the other day. Grating orange zest made me notice that baking has something in common with magic. Orange zest is not a particularly rare ingredient, at…
Matters of Interpretation 