Mark C. Taylor, who teaches religion at Columbia University, has an opinion piece in the NY Times on the timeliness of baseball and its deliberate pace in a world that is increasingly frenetic. Here are a few highlights: It has perhaps become commonplace to claim that sports have acquired the status of religion in the […]

We had a lively discussion of 1 John in exegesis class today and we were struck by the epistle’s (mostly) straightforward Greek and its brilliance of weaving together relationality with God and with others in the Christian community. Our all-too brief engagement with 1 John has motivated me to jump into Paul Rainbow’s Johannine Theology, which […]

The other day in class we discussed endings to biblical narratives. Some of them don’t end with what we might call a “satisfying resolution.” This is certainly the case with Mark’s Gospel, which ends abruptly and on a very awkward note. Such endings, however, are very effective, depending on the author’s intentions. Mark is destabilizing […]

In the Gospel of Mark, Satan is obviously the enemy of God and of Jesus and the people of God. But his opposition isn’t merely generalized. It’s very specific, taking the form of preventing Jesus from being the cross-shaped Messiah who goes the way of weakness and self-giving love. Mark doesn’t say much about Jesus’ temptation […]

Repost: This topic has come up a few times in conversation, so I thought I’d repost this. A few recent conversations have sparked some thoughts about going to church as a critically-engaged exegete. Biblical exegesis is all about critical analysis of the details of a text and critical scrutiny of other exegetes’ work.  Several times […]

Mark Edmundson asks whether collegiate athletes should be taught Plato, who reflected at length on reason in relation to passion. I wonder whether athletes at Christian colleges should be required to reflect theologically on a range of issues that might transform how they envision spirit, mind, body, and community (bodies in relation). It’s not only the […]

The Dunhill Links Championship was played last week over the Old Course at St. Andrews, Kingsbarns, and Carnoustie. I’ve played all three and the Old Course is certainly the least immediately impressive. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when Rory McIlroy said that when he first played the Old Course he hated it. Bobby […]

Just over a decade ago a conversation about fear-based motivations in relationships sparked some extended and seriously fruitful reflection about hopeful versus fearful postures toward others. The beginning of this NYT article about Marilynne Robinson, whose new novel is just out, brought much of that back to me. This June, as a grandfather clock rang the […]

I frequently supervise student research projects and I occasionally hear something like this: “I don’t want my research to be merely academic. I want it to have practical relevance for the church.” When I heard this from undergrads I would nod and say, “sure, I get it, relevance, so how about you engage these two or […]