March 30, 2018
God's Solidarity with the Oppressed: Biblical Reflections for Good Friday
In a post on this blog that I am surprised to discover is now more than five years old, I proposed an approach to (religious/devotional) reading of the Bible which I called the Bible as dialogue. The central question motivating this approach is, why is the Bible written from diverse human perspectives? That is, what are we to make of the fact that the Bible does not present itself as direct divine discourse, the way the Quran does? My proposal, in brief, was that we are not meant passively to ingest the contents of this book, but to 'think along...
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March 13, 2013
Quote of the Day: Enns on Religious Fear of Evolution
At present there is a lot of fear about the implications of bringing evolution and Christianity together, and this fear needs to be addressed head-on. Many fear that we are on a slippery slope, to use the hackneyed expression. Perhaps the way forward is not to resist the slide so much as to stop struggling, look around, and realize that we may have been on the wrong hill altogether.
- Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam, p. 145
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January 11, 2013
The Bible as Dialogue?
Over the holiday, I read Peter Enns' Inspiration and Incarnation. (Enns also writes an excellent blog.) I have also been reading Brevard Childs' commentary on Isaiah. These two books have set me off on an interesting train of reflections. I'll first summarize the relevant points from each book, then proceed with my own reflections. The central point of Enns book is a familiar but important one: the Bible simply isn't the sort of book the fundamentalists want it to be. That is, fundamentalists (and, interestingly, certain atheist polemicists) have a certain a priori conception of what a revelation from God...
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