There’s much to be said about our frenetic culture of immediacy and its attendant follies. In this introduction to his essay in yesterday’s NY Times called “Among the Disrupted,” Leon Wieseltier laments various media-driven digital age cultural corruptions in this furiously brilliant jeremiad: Everybody talks frantically about media, a second-order subject if ever there was one, as […]

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant wrote this interesting piece in the NY Times on Sunday on the experience of women speaking up in professional settings. When a woman speaks in a professional setting, she walks a tightrope. Either she’s barely heard or she’s judged as too aggressive. When a man says virtually the same thing, […]

There is indeed much about which to be excited in 2015 in the world of golf. The Open Championship returns to St. Andrews, Rory McIlroy is on a roll, and Tiger Woods apparently has things sorted out and will continue his quest to surpass Jack Nicklaus’s total of 18 major championships as a professional. As […]

Discussing Mark 6:45-52, Richard Hays sums up the hiddenness and mystery that surround Mark’s depiction of Jesus: [T]hose who have picked up the clues Mark has offered will perceive that God is strangely present in Jesus, but their response—at least at this point in the story—will be one of reverent reticence. By refusing to trumpet […]

This article in Leadership Journal is an excellent exploration of the factors that can pervert ministry motivations. It’s not merely revelatory of one church’s destruction but of how corrupting dynamics are at work in the hearts of ministry practitioners and those in church leadership. We want to believe the best about ourselves and so we […]

I had an interesting conversation with my son last night about the terrible violence in Paris. Among other things we talked about the increase of anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe and here in the United States. Life will be increasingly difficult for average Muslims who are law-abiding and peace-loving citizens of France, other European countries, and […]

In her response to N. T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God in Journal for the Study of Paul and his Letters (Spring 2014), Beverly Roberts Gaventa takes issue with the book’s massive size. She strikes a note in favor of succinctness that resonates with anyone attempting to read it. Paul and the Faithfulness […]

Next week religious studies scholars from around the world will gather in San Diego for the yearly meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion. Many people will be involved in job interviews, both interviewing candidates and being interviewed for jobs. This can be an exhausting and bewildering experience for […]

In anticipation of a class discussion on Revelation, I was going back through Reading Revelation Responsibly by Michael Gorman and revisited this wonderful passage on the church’s identity and mission: The beautiful vision of “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the […]

I’ve had a couple conversations lately about self-deception. In exegesis class we discussed 1 John 1:8 in which John describes certain people whose lives betray their profession. “They deceive themselves and the truth is not in them.” In an altogether different context, I’ve spoken with friends recently about sports figures who do not – cannot? […]