Good Catch!
Good Catch! Zero Theology: Escaping Belief through Catch-22s by John Tucker - A Book Review
The book, J. Tucker, Zero Theology: Escaping Belief through Catch-22s …
The book, J. Tucker, Zero Theology: Escaping Belief through Catch-22s …
Classical Greeks imagined a separation between mind and body, between spirit and matter.
The Jewish missionary Paul borrowed this notion—by his time dominant in the Greco-Roman world—as he tried to translate the more holistic Jewish spirituality for non-Jewish worshipers in the first century synagogues and congregations where he taught….
Sadly, the absolute spirit-versus-matter dichotomy of the Greeks has… persisted throughout the centuries of Christian dominance and into the empirically-minded science of the modern Western world.
But, our brains are in bodies in the material world. And our bodies need more than that minimal sight on a screen in order to feel—to know in the blood—that we are really in the midst of other people.
When we begin to experience cabin fever and loneliness, when we start to feel more discouraged, disoriented, and cut off than fear of the disease itself can account for, might we be uncovering a deeper spiritual pandemic: the loss of shared space?
The phenomenon of moral injury is currently being explored seriously in the areas of military service and torture experience, and it has been recognized as a genuine challenge by leaders of the U.S. Armed Forces branches and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
It is also becoming the object of broader serious discussion in areas of human experience relating to sexuality, abortion, child abuse and poverty.
The fact that religious systems include a substantial element of magic thinking and mythology does not disprove their usefulness in a difficult world. Religious belief has been common in all cultures since the beginning of human time because, from an evolutionary point of view, it has demonstrable survival value. At all times of history, human life has been a dangerous and fearful proposition. Religion has often functioned well to abate fear, instill intention, promote courage, and protect from despair.
The remarkable three-part documentary series, 1 Five Came Back (Netflix streaming), tells the story of the roles of five famous Hollywood film directors: Frank Capra ( Mr. Smith Goes to…
Moral injury is an emerging concept whose deep spiritual reality should be obvious to Quakers. A deep sense of transgression including feelings of shame, grief, meaninglessness, and remorse from having violated core moral beliefs. Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini…
We have just posted Winston Davis’ extended article, “Religion, In a Nutshell,” on the QUF Publications page. The present post offers some excerpts from the new work and invites blog followers to read the article in full. Modest doubt…
An earlier version of this essay was published as “Religion, Briefly Considered,” a six-part blog post series (Oct 2014 – Feb 2015). I. Darwin’s Dog: The Evolution of Religion … II. “When You Wish upon a Star”: The Projection Theory of…
Richard Beck is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Abilene Christian University. On his popular blog Experimental Theology Richard will spend enormous amounts of time writing about the theology of Johnny Cash, the demonology of Scooby-Doo or his…