The late months of the year bring many changes–the days become short, the weather cold, the landscape bare, the ground hard. During this season, the country has paused to remember–the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the 93rd anniversary of the Armistice. Amidst these sobering times of reflection, the Church prepares to celebrate the seasons of Advent and Christmastide–times of joy and peace. Yet the question arises in these times of remembrance, “Where has the Church been during the times when war, not peace, has covered the earth?” All too often it seems that the Church has made itself an accessory to war instead of calling all warring parties to account.
Archive for the ‘Essays’ Category
A Season of Remembrance
In Essays on 11 December 2011 at 3:06 pmThe Rapture Index: How the Hermeneutics of Rapture Predictions Are Modern
In Essays on 15 June 2011 at 10:34 pm
There are a whole host of adjectives used to describe fundamentalist religion: backwards, anti-modern, reactionary, unscientific, ante-Diluvian.* The idea behind all of those descriptions is that fundamentalist religions have fallen off the train of progress. It’s a whiggish notion that religion, like society and politics, is advancing to greater freedom, rationality, and liberality thanks to science; consequently, fundamentalist religions that don’t share those goals are backwards, and will fade away in time.
It’s also a notion that is wrong.
“For God(s) and Country”
In Essays on 1 June 2011 at 6:48 pm
The recent post on homosexuality and gay marriage highlighted the tension that arises when two authority structures, government and the church, claim the exclusive right to define activities and regulate behaviors. One bellwether of such conflicts is the military chaplaincy. The recent revocation of the “Don’t Ask” policy has brought this conflict between church and state into sharper focus. The new policy seeks to ensure that a servicemember can have an openly gay lifestyle free from discrimination while also protecting a clergy member’s right to preach the moral viewpoints of his denomination. A recent dust-up on the question of same sex ceremonies in military chapels shows how complex this balancing act has already become.
Evangelicals and Gay Marriage
In Essays on 30 May 2011 at 10:29 pmOver the last few election cycles evangelicals have had to think seriously about their opposition to gay marriage. As homosexuality and gay marriage have become more culturally acceptable, evangelicals have been forced to contemplate their opposition to gay marriage in a way that was not necessary when homosexuality remained outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse. Several states–most recently Minnesota on May 21–have considered legislation which would codify heterosexual marriage and prohibit homosexual marriage or civil unions. A large majority of observant evangelicals believe that homosexuality is a sin and that gay marriage should not be legal (83% and 85%). Interestingly, evangelicals are less opposed to civil unions (67%). That statistically significant difference needs explanation.
Digging into Religion Data: Introduction
In Essays on 27 May 2011 at 2:31 pmThe study of religion, like the study of history and other disciplines, is a spectrum between two methodological poles: humanities methods on one end, and social scientific methods on the other. My own methods tend toward the humanities, both because I’m interested in religious experiences that are often interior and unquantifiable and because I’m better trained in methods like close reading, theology, and exegesis than I am in methods like statistics and demography. But there are questions in the study of religious history that can only be answered through methods that tend toward the social scientific.
