I love that parable of David Foster Wallace about the two fish, swimming happily along, when they meet and old fish swimming toward them in the other direction. He passes, saying “How’s the water, boys?”
Of course, it depends on who “they” are. In the last several years evangelicals have been talking about alcohol. Historically, American protestant evangelicals have tended though never unanimously, toward the position of total abstinence, a position
A recent writing project sent me back to a type of literature scholars typically call “heroic.” It’s the ancient version of the action-adventure flick. I won’t bore you with the details, which you can read about in my
Ever since Seminary, I’ve had a deep interest in Islam and all things Arabic. It began with a course on introductory literary Arabic, taught mainly as an aid to comparative semitic grammar. But the sinuous script
It’s Sunday. We’re with family and friends, enjoying our Sunday dinner. And what’s on the menu? Roast preacher! We’re talking about what the preacher said, and how she got it wrong, or right, and how
The cry to “make the Bible relevant to today’s world” not only implies that the Bible itself lacks relevance, a point discussed yesterday, it also makes another assumption that is quite startling. This has to
I have some things to say that I’ve wanted to say for 35 or more years. I have hesitated, though, because they are things typically said by someone who has just heard a sermon or
We’ve looked at two kinds of “theology,” by which I really don’t mean merely our intellectual systems of doctrine, but the wider reality of our doctrinal convictions in the context of our character and relationships.
When the Hindenburg blew in 1937, engineers accepted the reality that the rigid airship needed to be completely rethought. However great the lift gained by using Hydrogen, its explosive tendencies ruled it out as a
I wrote the following many years ago, having used it in a segment of my Old Testament introduction lectures for seminarians for even more years. I re-post it periodically because I feel it’s still pertinent.
