This post is a plea for dialogue about the Bible in church. I’m writing it because my church has become a classroom, where talking is discouraged so that authority figures can instruct us in the truth. As I am writing these words, my denomination has just defrocked one of its ministers because he called for … More Why Bother with the Bible? Part 3
Factors Behind Biblical Illiteracy A serious student of scripture at work Last week I complained about the problem of teaching the Bible in a context where, increasingly, people are ignorant of the Bible. This week I’d like to talk about a related issue. One of my goals is to get students to see each biblical … More Why Bother with the Bible? Part 2
August 22, 2016 What is music? And what can music tell us about the reader’s role in co-creating the Bible’s meaning? I took up classical guitar a few years ago. I had musical experience before I did so, but I never thought about music philosophically. But once I started playing guitar and, more important, performing, … More Music and Reading the Bible (The Reader’s Culture, Part 3)
July 15, 2016 I’m in Phoenix and visited the Phoenix Art Museum. I was struck by the points of contact between modern/contemporary art and biblical interpretation. So, here is the first in a series of very short comments on some pieces of art and some thoughts about interpretation. Here’s a piece, Tumbling Forms. What struck me … More Modern Art and the Bible (I)
June 28, 2016 Back at work after a hiatus occupied with grading and other necessary tasks. In March I gave a short presentation at the Wesleyan Philosophical Society. In it I talked about the way in which my church (the Church of the Nazarene) and many other Christians have enthusiastically embraced a view of the … More Galileo–The Man who Made The Bible Safe for Science
Are we permitted to use human judgment in our reading and interpreting the Bible? … More Practicing discernment and discrimination
So far, my posts in this journal have been fairly abstract, dealing with the question of whether or not we should think of God’s revelation in terms of the transmission of facts, data, information. In the last hundred or so years, militant Fundamentalism has said Yes with a very loud voice. The result has been … More Of Genocide, Joshua, and the Jewish Community after the Exile
The Word of God is spirit-ual; filled with the Spirit of God … More The Word of God and Spirit
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