theology
What Do You Believe? How Do You Know? Want a Free Book?
For as long as I’ve been interested in the search for proofs about the existence of God, I’ve been interested in drawing them. Words and equations just didn’t seem like enough; to wrap my head around what these constructs were expressing, and to try to communicate them to others, I had to make pictures. As…
The Gospel of Primordial Androgyny
Forget one man, one woman. Jesus’s marriage could have been much, much more interesting.
Telling Trans Stories
While reporting on trans issues, a friend connected me with Shay Kearns (aka Anarchist Reverend). In my email exchanges with this seminary graduate (M.Div from Union Theological Seminary in New York, NY), I found myself drawn to his exploration of a new way forward for queer theology; one that isn’t focused on apologetics but instead…
Listen to This Man
An ongoing hobby of mine is to try and help keep my favorite theologian, William Stringfellow, in circulation. In the past, I’ve written about his ideas on biography, on the sexuality and the circus, on his partner Anthony Towne’s amazing obituary for God, and more. This time, in Commonweal, I had the opportunity to review…
Reality-Based Eating
We live in an imperfect world, so why not find a way to enjoy it? In the current “Food” issue of Lapham’s Quarterly, KtB regular (and, now, father!) Scott Korb has a provocative essay, combining his experience as a recovered self-righteous vegan with the syllabus of the food-writing course he teaches. He glues these together with…
Taking the Christ Out of Christmas
My brother and I got into a fight at the Christmas dinner table. This year it wasn’t our usual conservative-vs.-liberal spat, over homosexuality or abortion. (My brother is a Bible-believing Evangelical who reads Athanasius, to grasp the fullness of the Trinitarian God. I’m a Babel-believing writer who reads Flannery O’Connor, to hear revelation in the…
Does Science Need Religion?
When one is out to study religion, or to cover the religion beat, it can be awfully tempting to see religion everywhere you look as the all-satisfying explanation for everything. It’s the whole if-you-have-a-hammer-everything-looks-like-a-nail effect, right? Today at Religion Dispatches I’ve got a review of the new book by Steve Fuller, a rather audacious and…
John Milbank Evangelizes Zizek
Anglican theologian John Milbank has been defying expectations for a long time. His ideas, which have driven a movement called Radical Orthodoxy, refuse to be either liberal or conservative, radical or reactionary. They’re always challenging. In a classic Killing the Buddha essay about him, Jeff Sharlet wrote, with sensible hyperbole, that Radical Orthodoxy “may be…
Theology for Atheists
At the Guardian today, I’ve got a short bit about secular, mainly Continental philosophers who, in recent years, have turned to theology: [Slavoj Zizek] is one of several leading thinkers in recent years who, though coming out of a deeply secular and often-Marxist bent, have made a turn toward theology. In 1997, Alain Badiou published…