A review of Ecological Developmental Biology: Integrating Epigenetics, Medicine, and Evolution, By Scott F. Gilbert and David Epel (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer 2009). As a combatant in the evolution wars here in the United States and abroad, I have penned and processed quite a few papers on the interpretation of evolution.1 This means also reviewing the…
Creating a best-case scenario for Sri Lanka.
Despite the growing discussion about science-spirituality relationships, there remains many problems in integrating spirituality and scientific knowledge. This debate has often been characterized by radicalism and mutual denial. As another consequence of the contemporary emphasis on rationality and empirically based knowledge, building a strong and acceptable base to support the spiritual aspect of life as…
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;I fled Him, down the arches of the years;I fled Him, down the labyrinthine waysOf my own mind…—Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to…
I have long claimed to practice Buddhist mindfulness, but for me that means filling my mind full with as much as possible. Buddhist meditation always struck me as more about mindlessness, a process of clearing away all desires, all sensations, and all thoughts.
There are several opinions on the theistic status of Buddhism with the descriptions of Buddhism ranging from atheistic, non theistic to theistic. The fundamental philosophy of Buddhism seems to deny the concept of a personal God, although it is controversial whether Buddhism denies an impersonal form of God. Buddhist scholar Nyanaponika Thera1 suggested that conceptions…
In 1896, Charles Sheldon, a pastor in Topeka, Kansas, wrote a book titled In His Steps.1 The subtitle of Sheldon’s book, What Would Jesus Do? fueled the later “WWJD” industry—the bumper stickers, T-shirts, and bracelets that boldly pose a question to which the Religious Right is sure it knows the answer. My hypothesis is if…
Since I’m already clearly on record1 as a friend and fan of John Caputo’s winsome 21st-century rendition of Sheldon’s In His Steps, I would like to take this symposium on What Would Jesus Deconstruct? as an opportunity to push the conversation further, taking the spirit of Jack’s book seriously enough to disagree with it. I’ll…
A review of “What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church.”
Recent years have witnessed a change in tone within what is still a developing field of continental philosophy of religion. The tone of the first theological encounters with postmodern theory and deconstructive philosophies was primarily critical toward traditional forms of religiosity. Representative of this primarily critical tone was Mark C. Taylor’s assertion from Erring (1984)…