…re soon enough.” In their interpretive procedures and principles, however, participants in the CBP do not reject biblical inerrantist or originalist rhetoric. On the contrary, they see themselves as restoring the text to its original state. The project’s authors maintain, for example, that there are three “sources of error” in modern translations of the Bible. Along with bias in modern translations and the “lack of precision in the modern language…
…vitzky. ¹ Song of Songs Rabbah 2:7, Babylonian Talmud Ketubbot 111a with Rashi’s specifications. ² The first Reform platform calling for “the rehabilitation of Palestine” passed by a single vote in 1937. ³ On Redemption and its [Illegitimate] Substitutes…
…nts, not 6. But my point remains. Given the near-consensus that Benedict’s papacy was pretty much a disaster for the church, I find it a bit surprising that three-quarters of Catholics still had a generally favorable view of the guy. To me, as I said, it suggests that most Catholics don’t pay much attention to the particulars in Rome and have a more or less favorable view of every pope. And while Francis is obviously popular, even an 11 point incr…
…e German theologian who was imprisoned and executed by the Third Reich for participating in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. After it was published, Metaxas’s biography was strenuously criticized by Bonhoeffer scholars around the world, and for a variety of reasons, from its failure to draw from primary source material to its misuse of German texts (a language Metaxas doesn’t speak). But among the most scathing criticisms were those who argued…
…ay they “believe in God without a doubt,” broken down by generation: Gen Z numbers drop off precipitously since the late nineties. The second showed the number who say they “believe in some higher power.” Here, Gen Z showed an equally precipitous rise, since around 2012. Thompson’s tweet betrays some exasperation with the apparently contradictory results: “Depending on how you ask the question,” he wrote, Gen Z was either “leading a stunning athei…
…honesty, but also that students “practice good health habits and regularly participate in wholesome physical activities.” ORU, like other evangelical universities, does not only enforce negative prohibitions—it also prescribes a positive vision of the “good” student. This prescriptive model—what ORU has called its “whole person” concept since its opening in 1965—is epitomized in the school’s longstanding focus on its sometimes controversial studen…
…pushing marriage and prosperity as the only gospel message, idolizing “the pastor and the pastor’s wife,” and not dealing with the real stressors in black women’s lives, this situation is not going to change. There are black women across the high and low end of the economic spectrum; however, the majority of them have five dollars of net worth in the bank, trust Jesus, and hope that a man who is like “The Pastor” will emerge when the doors of the…
…need a solid grasp of the religions of the world. One thing I learned from participating in the 2014 textbook process is just how important public school textbooks are in shaping attitudes towards religions. Certainly college-level religious studies courses such as those we offer at SMU play a vital role in increasing religious literacy, but attitudes toward religions are formed at an early age. While students today can draw on a vast array of inf…
By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston
…nd the world through support of dictators considered “men of God” (Haiti’s Papa Doc Duvalier, for whom Family members arranged congressional support, Efrain Rios Montt, the Guatemalan killer championed by Pat Robertson, etc.). That, sadly, is the link between the killer bunny and its ostensible victim, fundamentalism and the establishment. What we learn through The Family is that when it comes to the question of American democracy vs. American emp…
…on its grave ever since. There is nothing new about this. UTS has sold off parts of its property several times in the past to stay afloat, and Columbia University has already taken over parts of its quadrangle. Will the current sale be enough to stop the bleeding? Maybe. This depends largely on the wider trajectories of liberal churches, as well as fine print to which Hedges and I are not privy. Is it a fatal compromise? I seriously doubt it. Is t…
