All posts in September 2006

Since my lead in the fantasy baseball league has dwindled to a half-point, and two or three of my star players have succumbed to injuries, I’d like the electronic record to show that with two days left in the season, my team was in first place. If the apparently inevitable happens, well, I was hanging…

This fall, I was planning to hand out to my students in Early Church History photocopies of pages from some tawdry billion-selling hack novel, for them to compare with their readings in textbooks and primary sources. I have to put that off for the moment, but eventually I’ll be adding below here a series of…

This is just what I love about my friends online, and just what drives me crazy. At the threshold of a weekend of manic activity, Doc responds to my vote of confidence with an elegant clarification that provokes me to push back a little. As a wise man once proposed, “It’s more complicated than it…

Faithful Interpretation Originally uploaded by dydimustk. This just in: copy of Fortress Press book discovered in Minnesota! Thomas (this is his copy, spotted in the Luther Seminary bookstore) wonders if there’ll be an opportunity for online interaction about the book. I’m hoping so; Geoff was talking to me this summer about possibly discussing it (and…

I don’t know precisely what Doc means when he talks about gestures (or Steve, when he does), and they talk about “gestures” in the context of marketing and economics (rather than the Queen of Sciences, Theology) — but in my wrestling with hermeneutics over the past few years, I’ve found the problem of communicative gestures…

I’ll be preaching at Frank’s ordination on Sunday — we’ reading 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 and John 6:51-58. It’s pretty clear — at least in prospect — that I’ll preach about Solomon’s prayer for wisdom, but I’m not sure exactly where I’ll go with it (and administrative obligations and course preps and social network turbulence…

I frequently hear Anglicans apologize for their liturgical language and customs (even on the minimal end of the scale). They have accepted the premise that “a language understanded of the people” (Article XXIV of the Articles of Religion) should be interpreted as something like “in colloquial use.” Since few of those who walk past my…

Margaret had never read much of Rudolf Bultmann’s work before this year of her doctoral program, so she messaged me to ask some questions. We were intrigued to chat about some of the patterns of similarity and difference between Bultmann and Karl Barth, and what Margaret might make of Bultmann for her own work. One…

I doubt anyone can approximate the wonders that the marvelous series of tubes we call the Internet and its subset the Web have brought us. On One Web Day, we can sit back for a moment and think about the amazing changes the Web has wrought in our conventional communication (remember when you had to…

Pippa had been waiting patiently for a chance to consult an optometrist; this morning she got her snappy new pair of glasses. All the way home, she was reading far-away signs, rejoicing at the vivid acuity of the world, and suggesting that I had been “hogging all the vision.”

Much to my surprise, yesterday brought a package from Fortress Press containing my author’s copies of Faithful Interpretation, the collection of essays from my first published work through a paper I gave just last winter, sort of a follow-up to the Winslow Lecture. I wasn’t expecting the book till October, so this was a marvelous…

Durn! Between long-range planning, midday mass, running home to check on Pippa, and new student advising, I missed out on PhoneCon. Sounds like fun, Jeneane; wish I could’ve been there.