Category: Academic
“You shall destroy all the peoples”: Does the Bible advocate genocide?
In the parsha for last week, Parashat Eikev, Moses instructs the Israelites on how to enter the land of Israel. The general idea is that if the Israelites observe God’s commandments, they will be re... Read More
Reza Aslan’s Jesus
Reza Aslan has a remarkable ability to make ancient stories come alive. I have assigned his earlier books, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam and Beyond Fundamentalism, in und... Read More
The Post-Colonial Method versus the Sociological Method in the Study of Religion: Top-down or Bottom-up?
In the current study of “religion,” two different methods have developed that are often in tension with each other. The first is the Post-Colonial Method (PCM)[1] with scholars like Talal Asad, ... Read More
What Can Be Done about the Gospel of John?
I’ve been struggling with the Gospel of John for quite a while. It’s a Gospel filled with beauty and poetry – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He w... Read More
“Welcoming the ‘Whelps’: A Queer-Allied Reading of Matthew 15:21-28,” by Catie Scudera
Matthew 15:21-28 and its corollary text Mark 7:24-30 take place within a historical context of great turmoil and tragedy for the Jewish people.[1] During Jesus’s time, Pax Romana was in effect, wher... Read More
Kicked Out, A Review: Part Two
This post is a continuation of Kicked Out, A Review: Part One I avoided reading Kicked Out for a long time. I didn’t quite know how it was going to sit with me, based on my own childhood. I was not ... Read More
Kicked Out, A Review: Part One
Pulling together first-person narratives from current and former homeless and kicked-out queer and trans* youth,[1] Sassafras Lowrey’s (Ed.) Kicked Out (Homofactus Press, 2010) is an remarkab... Read More
Understanding Ministry as Spiritual Entrepreneurship
I recently completed my first year in the University of Chicago’s Master of Divinity Program. All year, we have been exploring the question “What is Ministry?” I have struggled to define ministr... Read More