Year: 2009

Donatio Bushi

Should be interesting to watch how the Obama administration handles the delicate ego’s of the many evangelical faith-based organizations that the previous administration relied on for to solidify their base during election years (oh, and for the social work stuff as well):

Obama says faith shouldn’t be used to divide | CITIZEN-TIMES.com | Asheville Citizen-Times: “Obama is also telling the gathering that the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that he is announcing Thursday won’t favor any religious group, or favor religious groups over secular groups.

He says it will help organizations that want to ‘work on behalf of our communities,’ without ‘blurring the line'”

It’s good to hear a President speaking ecumenical language and not imparting governmental favor or sanctioning upon one denomination, faith or creed but recognizing the place of government to be a neutral party that allows itself to hear, rather than speak, the prophetic languages of faith communities.

After all, (to channel one of my old prof’s from Wofford College), it has been all downhill after Constantine.

Of Pig Bones and Pillars: Why Josiah Matters

As much as I’m drawn to Dura Europos, the interesting convergence of narrative interpretation, post-colonial criticism and historical authenticities surrounding the study of 7th and 6th century Judah as played out in the Deuteronomistic “History” of Joshua thru II Kings (and Jeremiah and parts of Hosea, Genesis, etc) is too fascinating to avoid.

I really do uphold the position that Hezekiah and Josiah (especially Josiah) are the main characters of the OT (from a narrative point of view) and all the actions, theologies, histories, and imaginings of creation can (I would say should, but that’s my own reading) be read through a Josianic lens.

Questions of historicity, royal theologies, centralization of politics and the worship of YHWH, cultural hegemony… it’s all in the Deuteronomistic History.

Fun, and incredibly important, stuff to ponder for us as we move out of a world dominated by the ideas of nationalism into something very different where cultural theologies will be as, if not more, important than historic realities.

It would appear that following the destruction of Philistine Gath, and the apparent existence of a political “vacuum” in part of the region of the late kingdom of Gath, the kingdom of Judah, perhaps under Hezekiah, takes over parts of the lands of the former kingdom of Gath, including the city of Gath itself.

What is interesting though, is the fact that despite the clear change in ceramics, when we analyzed the animal bones from the 8th cent. BCE level, there still was a lot of pig bones – very untypical of the Judean sites. This may very well indicate that while the political control, and cultural affiliation of the site moved towards Judah, at least some of the original “Philistine” population remained on site and sustained their traditional dietary habits.

link: A Judean “pillar figurine” from Gath « The Tell es-Safi/Gath Excavations Official (and Unofficial) Weblog

Intelligent Design is Bad Theology


Looks like a fun book (Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution
):

Seeing and Believing: “Miller brilliantly exposes ID for what it is: a farrago of theological assertions and discredited scientific claims designed to inveigle a religious view of life into the biology classroom. IDers have no defined program of scientific research. Although they spend huge sums of money on public relations, they have not produced a single scientifically refereed paper supporting the empirical claims of their ‘theory.’ Miller correctly concludes that ‘the hypothesis of design is compatible with any conceivable data, makes no new testable predictions, and suggests no new avenues for research.’ One of Miller’s keenest insights is that ID involves not just design but also supernatural creation. After all, the designer has to do more than just envision new creatures; he must also place them on Earth. And if that is not creationism (a label that IDers loudly reject), I do not know what is.

For Giberson, ID is not just bad science (or more strictly, not science at all), it is also bad theology:

The world is a complex place, and there is much about the universe that we still don’t understand. We are centuries away from closing the many gaps in our current scientific understanding of the natural world…. But it is the business of science to close gaps, and it has long been the central intuition of theology to find a better place to look for God…. Promoting ‘design’ in isolation from God’s other attributes is a dangerous and ultimately self-defeating way to get God back into science.

Rather than reconciling religion and science, then, ID puts them in further conflict, damaging both in the process. That is why so many theologians as well as scientists have testified against ID in court.”

Read the whole review from Jerry Coyne at The New Republic.