Christian Humanist Profiles 262: The Evidence the Liberal Arts Needs
Liberty has always carried tricky questions with it. Most folks in 2025 would agree that human beings should have liberty, but how one becomes free persists as a debate. …
Philosophy, Theology, Literature, and Other Things Human Beings Do Well
Liberty has always carried tricky questions with it. Most folks in 2025 would agree that human beings should have liberty, but how one becomes free persists as a debate. …
My own tradition within the Church was an early adopter of the motto “No creed but Christ.” For what intentions are worth, my forerunners seem to have had good ones:…
Among education writers, the phrase “critical thinking” can run from nebulous notions to utter ciphers. Few will disagree that critical thinking is good and needed, but relatively few will agree…
When I was a novice in Biblical Studies Hans Frei’s book The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative invited me to consider not only the world that gave us the Bible but…
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 and Psalm 130 • Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24 or Lamentations 3:22-33 and Psalm 30 • 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 • Mark 5:21-43 I wonder how long people knew what The Song of the Bow sounded like. Did they…
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49 and Psalm 9:9-20 or 1 Samuel 17:57-18:5, 18:10-16 and Psalm 133 • Job 38:1-11 and Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32 • 2 Corinthians 6:1-13 • Mark 4:35-41 I was seventeen years old when I first attempted to read Homer’s…
1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13 and Psalm 20 • Ezekiel 17:22-24 and Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15 • 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17 • Mark 4:26-34 I like that this week’s 1 Samuel reading begins where it does, with Saul already, as…
Slogans have always occupied our public attention, and the ways that an enemy redefines a slogan can be as important as the phrase’s original connotation. We can learn a fair…
1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15) and Psalm 138 • Genesis 3:8-15 and Psalm 130 • 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 • Mark 3:20-35 1 Samuel 8 is one of those passages (there are several) that brings to my attention, every time…
1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20) and Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 • Deuteronomy 5:12-15 and Psalm 81:1-10 • 2 Corinthians 4:5-12 • Mark 2:23-3:6 The first thing that draws my attention in 1 Samuel 3 is the brief, passing comment that opens up…
Isaiah 6:1-8 and Psalm 29 • Romans 8:12-17 • John 3:1-17 I’ve been taught, in very clear terms, not to read Isaiah 6 as a passage about the Trinity. I’ve been taught, in very clear terms,…
Taken down to their etymological components, scriptures are any written texts and literature is any human craft involving letters, usually of some alphabet or another. But etymological roots don’t go…
What is education for? The oldest grand library of which I have any knowledge is the tablet-collection of the Assyrian emperor Ashurbanipal, and as far as I can tell, it’s…
If you don’t spend much time around Biblical-studies people, the neologism “parallelomania” might be a new one on you, so let me explain: for different reasons, some writers in Biblical…
History as a practice examines the contingent. Everything that leaves evidence of having-happened might have happened otherwise, and nothing that has come to be except that it displaced other things…