Even the Devils Believe

I’m about halfway through reading the Book of Acts right now, and I’m also beginning Jaroslav Pelikan’s (вечная память) Acts, from the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible.
In the preface to the series, I just ran across this quote from Origen that I thought was worth sharing; the idea comes from his Hebrew teacher.
The Hebrew [...]

I’m finally back home for good, I think. As soon as I was done in Atlanta on Friday, I drove back to Carbondale, stayed a few minutes to unpack and repack my bags, then headed up to Urbana for the fourth annual Midwest Discordian Ministry Assembly, organized by Rev. Jack at the Channing-Murray Foundation.
Each year [...]

I just found out I have to drive down to Atlanta for some meetings at our office there, so it looks like my break from blogging is going to have to be extended. See you all next week!

I’m writing this post from the desk in my wife’s summer sublet in North Carolina—she starts the program in international law at Duke at the beginning of next month. I’m still finishing up a number of things in Southern Illinois, so I’m driving back first thing tomorrow morning. I doubt there’ll be any other posts [...]

I’m really grateful that Dwight introduced me to Howard Thurman, who was Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University for many years and had a great deal of influence on Martin Luther King, Jr. Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited still strikes me as one of the best summations of the “religion of Jesus” the [...]

I just visited the website of the Reformed Catholic Church and noticed that they are on BBC news. One of their priests in Kenya, a former Roman priest, has gotten married. The tone of the BBC piece is a bit odd, though:
The vestments of the serving priests are identical to those worn across the road [...]

Last night I finished Just War, Lasting Peace: What Christian Traditions Can Teach Us, co-authored by the blogosphere’s very own Mark Mossa, SJ. Unfortunately, Amazon isn’t accepting reviews yet, and anyway plugging a good book by a fellow blogger never hurts, so here is my review of the book:
This excellent resource on the various Christian [...]

So The Da Vinci Code film is upon us, with reams of commentary from right and left. I thought I might share a somewhat different perspective on Mary Magdalene from Teresa Berger, who is a scholar of liturgy and feminist theology (among many other things) at Duke University. She begins by discussing why the [...]

I mentioned yesterday that we saw Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind while we were in Chicago. I saw their touring troupe when it came to my alma mater a few years ago, but I hadn’t seen it since. Our friend Zach, who was putting us up in his apartment this weekend, suggested [...]

I mentioned last week that I would be attending the Ministry Conference at the University of Chicago Divinity School last Friday. The topic was “challenges of faith in this economy,” and I went in large part so I could see Kathryn Tanner speak on the subject (pre-conference posts on her book, Economy of Grace, are [...]