For most of us, the COVID-19 pandemic was one that we would not choose to relive. Unfortunately, epidemics on an international stage occur with relative frequency, every decade or so. While how to avoid major outbreaks is an important target, so is learning social lessons from COVID so as not to repeat them in the future. In this academic primer, Iwao Hirose seeks to distill such ethical lessons into a short, digestible format so that…
The Epic of Gilgamesh, the truly ancient of ancient stories, is vitally important to civilization for several reasons. First, it’s a really good story talking about the meaning of life, much like Job is to the Bible. Second, it provides a window into early civilization with the view that humans have always been, well, relatively human. It’s a timeless classic. Finally, it’s a religious work from a non-Roman, non-Hebrew, and non-Greek source. It illustrates the…
Evangelicalism grew popular in the 1980s-1990s, yet many, like myself and Jon Ward, were wounded by a movement that seemed more self-interested and self-absorbed than interested in bettering the real world. Ward’s memoir/”testimony” (a common term in evangelical religion) conveys this culture clearly. A pastor’s son, he describes how some of his one-time evangelical heroes fell in notable ways in the lead-up to and during the Trump administration. Ward himself has built a notable career…
Christian and Islamic mysticisms make as their goal to achieve greater union with God. These forms of spirituality tend towards an individualistic interpretation of this goal. An individual privately seeks a mystic union with God. In contrast, African mysticism has traditionally been rooted in benefiting the community. Union with God is seen as benefitting the entire group. Contemporary African-American religion combines both of these approaches in an approach Therese Taylor-Stinson calls “public mysticism.” She explores…
What does it mean to be simultaneously a devout Christian and an American citizen? Are such dual allegiances even possible? In this book, Mouw – a scholarly, religious expert on the Christian’s place in the (American) public square – offers a case that these domains can be compatible with each other… for the most part. He does so in a way that sides neither with the left nor the right, but instead welcomes warm-hearted debate…
Simone Weil, a twentieth-century French philosopher and political activist, possessed excellent academic training and worked in the Spanish leftist political movements. Around the advent of World War II, however, she became disillusioned with the totalitarian politics of Europe and made a reflective move inward. She began to convert to a Roman Catholic form of Christianity. Unfortunately, she died in obscurity before the war’s end as a result of a longstanding struggle with anorexia. She had…
John Polkinghorne is a Cambridge physicist who decided, mid-career, to become an Anglican priest. Like a good scientist working out a theory, he worked out how his orthodox Christian beliefs were essentially compatible with modern physics. He has won international acclaim and awards for his insights about religion and science. Especially central to his contributions is the idea that both disciplines require a certain amount of belief and faith. This book, compiled with his collaborator…
The Baptist faith I grew up with, at its best, tries to transform the world by living out values alien to contemporary society. Clarence Jordan, a son of Georgia in the American South, paid attention to his Christian upbringing, but as an adult, realized that American society often did not follow Jesus Christ’s lead. Religion was often kept in the walls of the church instead of being practiced on the street. This collection of writings,…
In her early career, Bowler had accomplished some of her life’s major goals. She earned a PhD and wrote the first religious history of the prosperity gospel movement. She got a teaching position at a prestigious divinity school (Duke). She was married and started a family with her partner. Then she received a diagnosis of stage IV colon cancer. Obviously, this rocked her life. Soon enrolling in a clinical trial, she responded to chemotherapy, but…
It is impossible for me to assess Frederick Buechner’s impact on readers without assessing his impact on my life, which remains profound. Thus, I will start there. At age 16, I chose to take my Christian faith seriously. For a Southern Baptist teenager, that meant not cursing, hanging out with the “right” crowd, and other pieties. I began to pay attention at church more, especially at our youth group meetings, and began to pay more…