I’ve asked some of my “students” to read Brian McLaren’s new book “A New Kind of Christianity” with me as part of our regular weekly seminar. I’m just a few chapters in and I thought it might be useful to post some of my impressions as I’m reading along. This series of posts won’t be so much a book report as a journal of ideas that McLaren’s writing sparks. I’m going to try this at […]
One of the surprising pleasures of my professional life this past year has been leading a class on liturgy for clergy of other denominations who are in the process of being received as Episcopalians. In partial fulfillment of the canonical requirements for their reception, we’ve been meeting once a week and working our way through the liturgies and theology of the Book of Common Prayer. The opportunity has allowed me to return to my own […]
I’ve seen this news reported in a number of places online this afternoon. Dan Brown’s latest book “The Lost Symbol” is selling more copies electronically on the Kindle than it is in paper. At least at Amazon. Most of the online reports seem to track back to this post at Kindle Nation Daily: “As of 10:30 a.m. EDT today, September 15, the Kindle edition is ahead of the hardcover edition in Amazon’s own hourly-updated sales […]
The first book I remember reading was Edith Hamilton’s “Greek Mythology” when I was starting 2nd grade. Somehow that, and my pouring over my father’s Ancient Greek and European history textbooks when I was boy, created a deep an abiding love of ancient cultures and, more importantly, their stories. I’ve been reading fantasy novels forever. When I read for fun, it’s pretty much a toss up between Sci-Fi and Fantasy with Fantasy winning out more […]
One of my online friends wrote this yesterday: “The funny thing about being tagged in a “what are you reading” meme (as I was by Jamie Notter) is that I do much of my reading through audiobooks, so the book I’m currently reading doesn’t have a page number, although I could dig up the physical copy of the book if I looked around enough, that’s not true of most audiobooks I “read.” See, I have […]
I’ve been intentionally offline here for a few weeks now. I realized earlier this fall that I hadn’t taken a real break from my daily duties in more than a year. That isn’t surprising given the number of irons in the fire I’ve been watching and the fact that this was a year of significant transition for me as I moved to a new ministry and a new part of the country. Thus I felt […]
Since I’ve been posting information on the Harry Potter series over the past months, I thought I’d share this piece of news that I found in the Scottsman this morning: “Harry Potter author JK Rowling today revealed that Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. The Edinburgh writer made the admission during a question and answer session with fans at New York’s Carnegie Hall. She was asked by one young fan if Dumbledore finds “true love”. […]
From the blogsite Hogwarts Professor: “Well, folks, it finally happened. The Main Stream Media finally asked Ms. Rowling about the Christian content of her writing, she acknowledged it openly and frankly, and the reporter writes that the ‘religious parallels’ were ‘always’ evident to the ‘sharp-eyed reader.’ What a hoot. I argue for years against the current of opinion and the day Ms. Rowling acknowledges her faith and its place in Harry Potter, the religious meaning […]
Bishop John Spong has published another book. This one is entitled “Jesus for the Non-Religious” Ben Myers has a review of the book, pointing out the good intentions and the admirable desire of the book to bring modern biblical scholarship to the common reader, but also pointing out the numerous ways in which Bishop Spong relies on out-dated scholarship when he does so. Myers however finds the key problem with this book – and with […]
Cool post over on the “Duck of Minerva” about the similarities between the Potter “universe” and the Star Wars “universe” “Harry Potter […] inherits two things from Star Wars: a set of cultural commonplaces on which it draws for much of its evocative power, and the mantle of serving as a root experience for massive numbers of people — especially for younger people, into whose cultural lifeworld notions like ‘muggle’ and the Ministry of Magic […]
