Yesterday on NPR, Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan conducted a fascinating interview (Christians Divided Over Science of Human Origins) with Daniel Harlow, religion professor at Calvin College, and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The topic: Whether Genesis should be interpreted literally or metaphorically. NPR religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty [...]
Tags:Adam·Albert Mohler·Barbara Bradley Hagerty·bible·Calvin College·Christian·creationism·Daniel Harlow·DNA·evangelicals·Eve·evolution·fundamentalist·Garden of Eden·Genesis·genetics·Homo·literalism·Neal Conan·origins·progressives·Southern Baptist·theology
As Samuel Freedman observes in this article on American politics, religious faith often blends with nationalistic faith to form a kind of civil religion:
“God’s words, the concept of godly government, are woven into the warp and woof of the fabric of our nation and this Constitution. It’s rightly called the Miracle in Philadelphia.”
Mr. Manship’s own [...]
Tags:bible·Civil Religion·Constitution·founding fathers·James Renwick Manship·literalism·nationalism·Samuel Freedman·Stanley Fish·Tea Party
Over at HuffPo Religion, Pete Enns wonders whether God speaks to him and others through fiction. Although Enns is discussing “a non-literal interpretation of the bible,” which raises critical and unresolved issues of reader-responses and interpretive communities, my guess would be that if he did write, evidence for it can be found in J.R.R. Tolkien’s [...]
Tags:bible·cosmology·fiction·Gandalf·interpretive communities·J.R.R. Tolkien·L. Ron Hubbard·literalism·Pete Enns·reader response theory·Roland Barthes·Scientology·Stanley Fish·The Lord of the Rings·The Silmarillion·Tolkienism
In the beginning, I had some hope for the Huffington Post’s relatively new section devoted to religion. Here was a forum, I thought, where difficult questions could be asked and possible answers ventured. Not once, however, have I read a post which asks a tough question, which might include any of the following:
What is “religion”?
Why [...]
Tags:compassion·deities·demons·doctrines·ecumenical·educated·enlightened·ethics·exegesis·existential·Frank Schaeffer·fundamentalism·fuzzy·gods·hermeneutics·Huffington Post·HuffPo Religion·Jay Michaelson·liberal·literalism·love·meaning·morals·mystical·mysticism·myth·progressive·purpose·sophisticated·souls·spirits·syncretic·vague
