Today at HuffPost: Intelligent Design is dead
I’ve a new piece up today at the Huffington Post. It is the reworking of an essay I wrote a few years ago about Johannes Kepler and Intelligent Design. Here’s a teaser: Kepler reminds us that religious people do not need to shrink from science and its naturalistic methods, because they more than others have [...]
No place to call home: on Richard Dawkins’ academy, atheists in church, and the emptiness of scientism
Edward Hopper, Dauphinee House, 1932. It’s good to have a home, physical and otherwise. Image source: Museum Syndicate Back in September, I wrote an article for Religion Dispatches about Richard Dawkins’ refusal to teach atheism — his own view — to kids. Of all the things out there with my name on it, it is [...]
This Advent, do not assume a spherical Jesus
Spherical Cow, from Abstruse Goose via The Last Word on Nothing. Creative commons 3.0. You know, I thought I had just coined the phrase, “spherical Jesus.” But no. UPDATED 12/7 I woke up this morning and realized this post, as it was, made no sense. So I dropped the Harold Camping business and added Jesus. [...]
The end of the world is coming. We object
Anonymous, Day of the Last Judgment, late 19th century. From what I can remember of the Islam classes I took, the Last Judgment is a very big deal for Muslims, just as it is for Christians. In this jaunty scene, Mohammed sits on the camel in the upper right. Per tradition, his face is blanked [...]
Flannery O’Connor and the end of all things
Barry Moser, Flannery O’Connor (detail). Wood engraving. See the original at moser-pennyroyal.com. Used with permission of the artist The First Sunday of Advent. That was yesterday. And what a Sunday it was. Julie’s sermon was taken from Malachi. Malachi! Can you imagine?! I almost fell over when I saw that. The passage (3.1-3) reads, See, [...]
In which I defend theological doohickey postmodernist BS
Benozzo Gozzoli, The Glory of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 1468-1484. Thomas, nearly as postmodern a chap as Nicholas of Cusa, was keenly aware of the difficulties inherent in all God-talk. He dealt with the problem up front in his Summa Theologica, forging a middle way between apophatic and cataphatic. We like him anyway. Source: Wikimedia Commons. The [...]
The shape of our ignorance: Catherine Keller on life’s contradictions
Catherine Keller. Image source: Vancouver School of Theology A couple of days ago there appeared, at Religion Dispatches, an interview with theologian Catherine Keller. I read some of Keller’s stuff as a seminary student and found her to be extremely challenging. She reads not unlike poetry. Over time, though, I began (I like to think) [...]
Lying on a bed of nails: more on Johnny Cash, the prodigal son, and the truth of stories
Andrei Rabodzeenko, Prodigal Son, 2006 I have received a number of emails and Facebook messages and comments about my latest article at RD. I hope to reply to all of them in time. But I am still on the job hunt. Therefore these must suffice: This post and an expression of thanks to my interlocutors. [...]
Believing in Johnny Cash: An open letter to atheists
I’ve a new piece up at Religion Dispatches. Here’s a taster: Several days ago I was in the car, listening to songs shuffled at random. Just as I pulled into the parking lot I heard the opening lines of “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer,” recorded at one of Cash’s famous 1968 Folsom Prison shows. [...]
The magnificent defeat
Jack Baumgartner, Jacob Wrestling the Angel of the Lord (2010). Used by permission of the artist The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he [...]
