Resident Theologian
About the Blog
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Some reflections on Stephen Graham Jones’s great vampire novel of how the west was lost.
Second naivete
A personal scholarly trajectory regarding the historicity of ancient scriptural narrative.
The metaphysics of historical criticism
Fifty metaphysical propositions that underwrite the practice of “historical-critical” biblical scholarship.
East/West Christianity: an unfinished love story
A potted history of Eastern and Western Christianity, narrated (by my brother) as a love story.
My latest: a review of Mark Noll in The Christian Century
A link to my review of Mark Noll’s new book in the latest issue of The Christian Century.
“The latest scholarship”
One often hears folks in biblical studies refer to “the latest scholarship” on such-and-such topic. Or they will refer to author X or book Y being “out of date.” Or when writing a scholar will refer to “the latest studies” or “the most recent research.” I’ve poked fun at this tendency before. A few years back I penned “An honest preface to contemporary academic interpretation of the New Testament.”
Abraham our contemporary
The Bible is not a human record from the distant past, full of a mixture of inspiring and not-so-inspiring stories or thoughts; nor is it a sort of magical oracle, dictated by God. It is rather the utterances and records of human beings who have been employed by God to witness to his action in the world, now given to us by God so that we may learn who he is and what he does; and the “giving” by God is by means of the resurrection of Jesus.
(In)defectibility, local and regional
Churches die. Christian traditions die. Denominations die. Whole regions and epochs of once flourishing ecclesial and liturgical life die. Does that sound harsh? It’s certainly cause for lament. But it’s a plain truth of history, and the church’s faith has no grounds for disputing it.
A test for your doctrine of Scripture
Here’s a test for you. Suppose that scientists created a sort of time machine. Not one that could transport someone from the present into the past. But one that could give anyone in the present a perfect window onto the past: clear, detailed, and controlled. Like a God’s-eye documentary recording of all that transpired in then and there, whenever and wherever. You wouldn’t be able to affect or change anything—what’s past is past, what’s done is done—but you could observe it.
The adventure of history
This week I’ve been listening to Ernst Gombrich’s A Little History of the World on Audible. I’ve had it on my shelf for a while but I decided it might be good in audio form. I was right: it is wonderful. I’m a little over halfway through, and it’s been sheer pleasure.
The great cataract of nonsense
Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps we need intimate knowledge of the past.
François Furet on revolutionary consciousness
[T]he revolutionary situation was not only characterised by the power vacuum that was filled by a rush of new forces and by the 'free' activity of society. . . . It was also bound up with a kind of hypertrophy of historical consciousness and with a system of symbolic representations shared by the social actors.