In light of this story about Pope Francis, a friend of mine recently suggested that this pope might have an appreciative understanding of the Noahide laws. He (thank you, Joel) pointed me to this article.
There are a few places where Francis has been vague (perhaps intentionally so) but he seems to care deeply for inclusivity and fence mending, whatever that means to him. Let's hope that these hints are portents for more to come.
-anthony
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
The Top Ten Highlights of my Trip to Hog Territory - Le Donne
10) Saw my first real armadillo. It was road kill, but it still counts.
9) Ate at the famous Mr. Spriggs BBQ. The meat fell right off the blessed bone!
8) Was treated to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. My thoughts on this flick are here.
7) Saw Elena Blackburn complete five pull ups—one for every year of her life. Chin went right over the bar.
6) Saw the Tornado-savvy and focused Pastor Phil in his element. I learned about updrafts, clouds organizing, and tornadic storms. I never even knew that “tornadic” was a word. “Discover the Excellence!”
5) A lovely Arturo Fuente.
4) Met a dude named (no kidding) “Oklaben”. In addition to being handsome and bright, I was convinced that he possessed the coolest name on the planet. This was short-lived as I was soon told that his father is named “Oklahomer”. God bless America!
3) Had several edifying conversations about Paul's environmentalism.
2) Got to spend some time with the fine people of Fort Smith, Arkansas.
And the top highlight of my trip to hog territory:
9) Ate at the famous Mr. Spriggs BBQ. The meat fell right off the blessed bone!
8) Was treated to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. My thoughts on this flick are here.
7) Saw Elena Blackburn complete five pull ups—one for every year of her life. Chin went right over the bar.
6) Saw the Tornado-savvy and focused Pastor Phil in his element. I learned about updrafts, clouds organizing, and tornadic storms. I never even knew that “tornadic” was a word. “Discover the Excellence!”
5) A lovely Arturo Fuente.
4) Met a dude named (no kidding) “Oklaben”. In addition to being handsome and bright, I was convinced that he possessed the coolest name on the planet. This was short-lived as I was soon told that his father is named “Oklahomer”. God bless America!
3) Had several edifying conversations about Paul's environmentalism.
2) Got to spend some time with the fine people of Fort Smith, Arkansas.
And the top highlight of my trip to hog territory:
1) Was reminded that Christians can rise to be truly wonderful when pressed into action.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Tornadoes and Christians
I spent the last five days in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Although there were tornado sirens going off and tornadoes just north and south of me, I was never in any real danger. I spent most of the last two days watching the local television coverage.
Those who know me know that I often assume the role of an insider's critic to Christianity. Allow me to say that I have been quite proud of the Christians I've witnessed over the past few days. The churches in Moore and the larger OKC area have delivered nothing short of saintly work. They won't get any national publicity for it and they don't really want it. I can say the same of the many folks near Joplin too. We have our faults and they are many, but when it comes to disaster relief and care for victims, the Christian Church is a force of good in this world.
-anthony
Those who know me know that I often assume the role of an insider's critic to Christianity. Allow me to say that I have been quite proud of the Christians I've witnessed over the past few days. The churches in Moore and the larger OKC area have delivered nothing short of saintly work. They won't get any national publicity for it and they don't really want it. I can say the same of the many folks near Joplin too. We have our faults and they are many, but when it comes to disaster relief and care for victims, the Christian Church is a force of good in this world.
-anthony
Monday, May 20, 2013
Star Trek: Into Darkness and Religion - Le Donne
I saw the latest Star Trek offering yesterday (thanks to Pastor Phil who used his gift card to pay my way).
For the self-aware and un-geeky, here is the premise: This movie is a reboot of the original Star Trek story and characters—imagining that they are all young, living in a parallel universe and more attractive. It also turns out that tinkering with the time-space continuum can turn you into a better actor.
I’ve always been sort of nerdy, but I’ve never been a Comic Con-nerd. I did, however, watch Star Trek regularly in my youth. It was a father-son thing. On the Star Trek nerd scale, I’m somewhere between comparing The Next Generation to Greek mythology and not knowing (or caring) what the Klingon word for “honor” is. And I have indeed kissed a girl.
I really liked Into Darkness. These reboot films have been heavy on character development (rare in action/adventure flicks) and have brought in some interesting twists to a franchise that looked to have sung it’s swan song decades ago. Both this film and the last one haven’t taken themselves too seriously either. In case you’re interested, you might enjoy this latest film a bit better if you reacquaint yourself with The Wrath of Khan first.
The reason for this post—and what makes it relevant for religious studies—is that Into Darkness reminded me that I’ve never been impressed with the Star Trek treatment of religion. I’m not offended by a naturalist worldview, I just think that the writers have tended toward a superficial understanding of what makes religions tick. This is a severe limitation for any science-fiction mythology.
For the self-aware and un-geeky, here is the premise: This movie is a reboot of the original Star Trek story and characters—imagining that they are all young, living in a parallel universe and more attractive. It also turns out that tinkering with the time-space continuum can turn you into a better actor.
I’ve always been sort of nerdy, but I’ve never been a Comic Con-nerd. I did, however, watch Star Trek regularly in my youth. It was a father-son thing. On the Star Trek nerd scale, I’m somewhere between comparing The Next Generation to Greek mythology and not knowing (or caring) what the Klingon word for “honor” is. And I have indeed kissed a girl.
I really liked Into Darkness. These reboot films have been heavy on character development (rare in action/adventure flicks) and have brought in some interesting twists to a franchise that looked to have sung it’s swan song decades ago. Both this film and the last one haven’t taken themselves too seriously either. In case you’re interested, you might enjoy this latest film a bit better if you reacquaint yourself with The Wrath of Khan first.
The reason for this post—and what makes it relevant for religious studies—is that Into Darkness reminded me that I’ve never been impressed with the Star Trek treatment of religion. I’m not offended by a naturalist worldview, I just think that the writers have tended toward a superficial understanding of what makes religions tick. This is a severe limitation for any science-fiction mythology.
Divine Providence and Old Book Smell - Le Donne
My friends. Science, when done well, makes one happy. For example, I learned this in a used book store today:
"Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good-quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us."
from Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
-anthony
"Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good-quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us."
from Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
Behind the Gospels by Eric Eve—Chris Keith
Today in the mail I received a copy of Eric Eve’s new book, Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition.
I was able to read the prepublication manuscript of this book, and it’s fantastic. It is now the go-to first port of entry into scholarly discussion of how we got the Gospels and what the Jesus tradition would have looked like prior to its textualization in the Gospels. Eve provides an introduction to the important scholarship from form criticism up to the present. Although it’s heavily focused on the oral tradition, Eve takes clear account of the impact of memory studies as well, offering several chapters on this topic. What makes this book so great is that Eve has a very balanced perspective on everything, taking stock of the strengths and weaknesses of all the major models for understanding the oral tradition. Here’s his conclusion to whet your appetite:
I was able to read the prepublication manuscript of this book, and it’s fantastic. It is now the go-to first port of entry into scholarly discussion of how we got the Gospels and what the Jesus tradition would have looked like prior to its textualization in the Gospels. Eve provides an introduction to the important scholarship from form criticism up to the present. Although it’s heavily focused on the oral tradition, Eve takes clear account of the impact of memory studies as well, offering several chapters on this topic. What makes this book so great is that Eve has a very balanced perspective on everything, taking stock of the strengths and weaknesses of all the major models for understanding the oral tradition. Here’s his conclusion to whet your appetite:
“It should by now be clear that thinking about the oral tradition behind the Gospels has moved on a long way since the days of classical form criticism. It also seems clear that any account of the pre-Gospel tradition has to reckon with the interplay between stability and flexibility, recollection and interpretation, novelty and conformity to cultural expectations, and the needs to understand the past in light of the present and the present in light of the past, and that this interplay is extremely unlikely to have resulted in either photographic recall or total invention. Finally, oral tradition has increasingly come to be understood within the context of social memory, and it may be that in future research memory will turn out to be a more useful category than oral tradition.” (p.185).
Congratulations to Eric on a fine volume!
Sunday, May 19, 2013
My Doppelganger
I preached at 1st Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith today where I met my doppelganger. Handsome as all hell.
-anthony
-anthony
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Quarterly Quote of the Month about Jesus for this Week
“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow thou me!’ and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”
~Albert Schweitzer
Friday, May 17, 2013
Review of The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation
Amy-Jill Levine reviews Zev Garber, ed. The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation. Shofar Supplements in Jewish Studies Series. West Lafayette Purdue: University Press, 2011.
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=33060
This review is not short of one-liners for which Prof. Levine has become famous.
-anthony
p.s. my thanks to Ovidiu Creanga for bringing this to my attention.
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=33060
This review is not short of one-liners for which Prof. Levine has become famous.
-anthony
p.s. my thanks to Ovidiu Creanga for bringing this to my attention.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Why I Thank God for Bart Ehrman - Le Donne
Academia is a business of argumentation. We are trained to falsify our own assumptions to varying degrees of success. We are also trained to appraise the strengths and weaknesses of our colleagues' arguments with varying degrees of honesty. The byproduct of such a state of affairs is that almost no professional scholar can agree with a colleague 100% of the time. This is a happy byproduct. It just so happens that we spend most of our time focusing on the 5 to 10% that makes for good debate. (By the way, keep this in mind the next time that someone laments that there is a different "historical Jesus" for every historical Jesus scholar. In my view, most of us agree much more than we disagree.) This is why Tom Wright and Marcus Borg could tour the world for a decade with their Siegfried and Roy act.
So I am quite happy to say that I agree with about 80% of what Bart Ehrman writes. This statement will scandalize some demographics and seem par for the course to others (no surprise there). Some folks are going to think that 80% is too high a percentage as I am a professing believer and Prof. Ehrman is a dreaded heretic.
Hurtado on Jacobovici
A brief but spot-on critique of Simcha Jacobovici's spin of the so-called Gospel of Jesus' Wife.
-anthony
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