It’s a new year, so I’m thinking about new things. Next school year, I’ll be teaching the same slate of core class: “Philosophy of Human Flourishing”; “Religion in Global Context”; “Introduction to the Bible”. While I enjoy teaching all three of these, I’d like to someday, possibly teach courses on the following topics, because I’m curious about them:
1. “History and Philosophy of Games”
This may be a 1.a and a 1.b option, maybe even a 1.c depending on what would draw the most interest from students (presuming that there would be any). 1.a would be “History and Philosophy of Games” but if that’s too broad, 1.b would be “History and Philosophy of Sports”. If 1.a was doable, I’d open with Unit 1, “What Is a Game?” I’d consult the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein but also Bernard Suits (The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia), Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World), and the philosopher who I’m currently reading: C. Thi Nguyen (Games: Agency as Art). Unit 2 would likely focus on, for lack of a better word, physical games ranging from baseball to Uno, or “sport” if the former idea is too broad. Unit 3 would likely focus on video games. Each unit would begin with a history of those types of games. I’m not sure what other lessons I’d add yet, though I imagine.
If this is too much to stuff into one class, then my 1.b option would just be, as mention, “History and Philosophy of Sports” and my 1.c option would be “History and Philosophy of Video Games”. Both of these topics would be much easier to plan for separately. Paradoxically, I don’t play video games all that much, but they were a massive part of my childhood, so I find them interesting still. I watch a ton of sports, but don’t play much. I think the history and philosophy of sports would be easier to create, as I’m more familiar, but I imagine, if somehow I could incorporate some video game play time into the class, the history and philosophy of video games would be a lot more fun to create/teach.
2. “Philosophy for Becoming an Adult”or “Philosophy for Adulthood”
I imagine this being an elective for seniors. Unit 1 would focus on meaning-generation. I could see myself teaching lessons on what major philosophical and religious traditions have presented as the meaning of human life. (For the religious traditions, I could use Stephen Prothero’s four key components of religions (problem, solution, technique, and exemplars) which might map onto schools like Stoicism, Epicureanism, Confucianism, etc.
Then, Unit 2 would focus on relationships. Maybe something related to Confucius’ ranking of relationships and teachings about filial piety combined with something on friendship (maybe consulting Robin Dunbar’s Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships) and maybe something—if I’m brave—on romantic relationships, though I’d be super cautious about this, and may want to choose some novel angle. Unit 3 would focus on work and career, maybe built around Matthew Hammerton’s “What Is Wrong with Workism?” Hammerton mentions Aristotelean “perfectionism,” which would be worth a lesson in itself. I think a discussion of AI’s relationship to work and whether we want a “post-work future” would be a great fit here.
An introduction to ethic could be a lot of fun too.
Over on Substack, I wrote a short post asking if culture is really getting worse because it’s safer and boring, or if that’s just nostalgia making us look like hypocrites in light of what our actions show us about what we value: “Nostalgia and the Good Life”.
On the way to work today, I was listening to Tripp Fuller and Sarah Martin Concepcion interview Lofty Nathan about his new film “The Carpenter’s Son” that’s based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a text that I used to read with my students.
The interview got me thinking: What would make for a fun course (or, maybe even a book on the topic) that covers controversial Jesus movies, as this one promises to be. Here’s the immediate list that came to mind:
“The Carpenter’s Son” would be perfect for introducing the child Jesus and questions that have to do with what it would look like for the Son of God to be a child and an adolescent.
“Last Days in the Desert” where Ewan McGregor plays both Jesus and the Satan tempting him. I tried to show this to students a few times, but I think you may need to be more mature than a high schooler (at least most high schoolers) to really enjoy the nuance of the movie, which seems to present Satan as Jesus’ internal “dark side,” if you will.
“Mary Magdalene” presents Mary as Jesus’ closest disciple, and places her in tension with the male disciples while drawing from “gnostic” Christian themes.
“The Passion of the Christ” would be the only one that would bother more progressive Christians (as the list I’ve created thus far would be more controversial with conservative ones) due to the bloodthirsty nature of the film that leaves many viewers as uncomfortable as any of the previous movies listed.
In 2018, I finished my Ph.D. in Religion and Theology from the University of Bristol (Bristol, UK) through Trinity College Bristol. My thesis was titled “Jesus the Spirit-Baptizer: The Interpretation and Significance of the Baptist-Prophecy within Incipient Christianity”. I never did anything with it. My viva was brutal. The process of doing corrections was exhausting. When my corrections were approved, it was a Pyrrhic victory. I didn’t want to think about John the Baptist ever again!
But I’ve found myself wanting to do a deep dive into the subject matter again. I don’t know why, but I do know that the best way for me to keep organized is to blog about it. So, if you’re interested: “John the Baptist, Then and Now”.
There have been many times when I’ve asked myself, “Why am I still a Christian?” Admittedly, I don’t ask this question when pondering global Christianity, but instead, American Christianity. I find myself looking at the American church and wondering, “Is this my religion?” And if so, what does that say about me? Obviously, I don’t ask this question because I have a view of all American Christians. I’m not seeing those quietly serving food in a soup kitchen, or the pastor counseling someone who has lost a loved one. I’m seeing the personalities that make it onto cable network news, or the famous and wealthy televangelists, or those who have a large social media following. Because of the primacy of their place in society, and my lack of familiarity with what they call “Christianity,” I feel the urge to distance myself from the label. This sort of maneuver has proven wise in the past. As much as I would’ve liked to have seen the wonderful word “Evangelical” mean “people who try to live out the Gospel,” it means, in my view, something utterly opposite. There was a point when I identified as “Evangelical,” but decided that the word had become a lost cause, and chose to abandon it, lest someone assume my politics, morality, ethics, etc., before I could clarify them myself, not to mention my theology! But “Christian” is older and broader in meaning than Evangelical. So, I’ve retained it.
Even when identifying as a Christian, what I mean is that I’m trying to be one, not that I’ve arrived. I see being a Christian as an ambition, less so a status. If being a Christian means living like Christ, then I hope to be on my way, but I’m nowhere near home.
On the other hand, I know I’m a Christian as much as I know I’m an American. It’s something that I’ve inherited. And though I could choose, theoretically, to try to leave Christianity for a new religion, or no religion at all, just like I could choose, theoretically, to leave the United States, never return, maybe even apply for citizenship elsewhere, it’s the very fact that I feel frustrated with Christianity, like I often feel frustrated with the United States, that serves as proof that this is already home. The church is home, spiritually. The United States is home, nationalistically. I have residence in the “City of God” and the “City of Man”. My frustration indicates care and investment, not the opposite.
Chesterton on Christianity’s Critics The great G.K. Chesterton made this point at the beginning of The Everlasting Man. He talks about critics of “the Church”. (He’s Catholic, so I’ll go with the capital “C” he uses.) The critics that he addresses are those who have departed from the Church. Today, we might speak of those who have or are “deconstructing” (presuming that buzz word continues to buzz). Now, I don’t want to share Chesterton’s thoughts as a way of criticizing anyone who is deconstructing or realizing that Christianity isn’t for them. I want to share his thoughts to explain why I know that Christianity remains for me, even if I struggle to settle into what that means for my day-to-day life. With that clarification in mind, let me return to Chesterton, who says of Christianity’s critics (pp. 10-11 of the 1993 Ignatius Press version):
They cannot get out of the penumbra of Christian controversy. They cannot be Christians and they cannot leave off being Anti-Christians. Their whole atmosphere is the atmosphere of a reaction: sulks, perversity, petty criticism. They still live in the shadow of the faith and have lost the light of the faith.
In light of this observation, he remarks (p. 11):
Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it. It is the contention of these pages that while the best judge of Christianity is a Christian, the next best judge would be something like a Confucian. The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgments; the ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and already weary of hearing what he has never heard”
Chesterton uses “a Confucian” as an example, saying, “He does not judge Christianity calmly as a Confucian would; he does not judge it as he would judge Confucianism.” This resonates with me. As someone who teaches comparative religion, I try to be as objective as possible. I try to represent religions as they are, not as they ought to be. I recognize my status as an outsider to Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc., and avoid weighing in on the internal debates within those communities. I’ll never feel comfortable saying “that’s heretical Judaism” or “that’s not true Islam”. I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying this for professional reasons, but also personal ones. I’m not Jewish; I’m not Muslim. Professionally, I don’t weigh in on what makes something heretical or true Christianity, but personally, I do have strong feelings about when Christianity is being done right and when it’s being done wrong. I do think there are healthier and less healthy expressions of my faith. I don’t have those feelings about other religions, at least not in the same way. (Obviously, as an outsider, I would prefer to engage Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, who are open minded, tolerant, willing to participate in interfaith work, etc.)
It’s not that I don’t agree or disagree with certain teachings of the various religions, but that I’m not (as?) emotionally invested in those disagreements. In fact, I prefer to find the agreements for the sake of interfaith cooperation! Similarly, I may be abstractly bothered by how things are done in China or Russia, but I don’t feel the weight of it like I do whatever is happening in my home country. Why? Because I’m not so foolish to think I have any say in “the world,” but I’m just foolish enough to think that I have a very, very, minuscule say in what happens in “America”. As an outsider, I have no standing within theological debates within Islam. As an insider, I’m just foolish enough to think I have a very, very, minuscule say in what happens within Christianity. I can remark calmly, as an outsider, about events within China, or theological disputes within Islam; I’m less calm about events within the United States, or theological disputes within Christianity.
And I quoted Chesterton to make this point. You know you’re not a Christian in the fullest sense when you don’t care, or don’t care enough to get bothered by much. I do care about China and Russia, but not enough to travel there to do anything in those parts of the world, or to seek citizenship in those countries. I do care about Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, but not enough to get involved in internal debates about what to believe, how to behave, and who gets to gatekeep who belongs. Whenever I’ve thought, “Maybe Christianity isn’t for me,” I’ve realized that the same care that causes me to think about this subject is the care that answers the question for me. I can’t be as objective about Christianity, at least not as a whole, at least not within my realm of minuscule influence, as I can about other religions.
The Imaginative Effort Chesteron claims that when we make “the imaginative effort to see the whole thing from the outside,” of which he means “the Church” or Christianity,” we find that it really looks like what is traditionally said about it inside….To put it shortly, the moment we are impartial about it, we know why people are partial to it.” (p. 12) This isn’t to deny the validity of outside criticisms. As a Christian, I take to heart and feel the sting of comments like the one attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” But from Chesterton’s perspective, I recognize that when I look at other religions curiously, I try to find the things that I admire. This is what Barbara Brown Taylor called “holy envy”. This concept follows the guidelines for interfaith dialogue set forth by the theologian Krister Stendahl:
When trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion, not its enemies.
Don’t compare your best to their worst.
Leave room for holy envy.
To better understand “holy envy,” read my review of Brown’s book: “Recently read: Brown Taylor’s ‘Holy Envy'”. In short, the idea is that there is always something nourishing to be found in religions that aren’t your own. There’s always something that another tradition might do better, or make clearer, etc., from which you can learn. But that tradition, on the whole, remains one other than your own. If I try to take this approach to Christianity (seeing it “from the outside” as Chesterton challenged his readers to do), then I do find the beauty within Christianity that can be easy to miss when I’m distracted by all the expressions of Christianity that seem to be doing it so terribly wrong. This is similar to how easily it can be for feelings of patriotism to fade when your conationalists, or the party in power, are representing your country globally in ways that seem antithetical to the values that we’ve told ourselves make us great. But we have to remember that just as our frustration with our nation tells us that we value it, and that there’s something we find worth our concern, so with one’s religion. And this is how I know it would be, for me, hypocritical to do anything other than confess to being a Christian, and do what little I can to try to contribute to a more positive, life-affirming expression of my faith in the world. If the day comes when I stop talking about Christianity, or only with minimal curiosity that’s mostly void of any attached emotions, that’s the day that I’ll know that I’ve left Christianity.
I’ve been listening to a fantastic, “limited-run podcast” called “The Road to Nicea”. I want to recommend it here for anyone interested in the Trinitarian/Christological controversies that led up to the Council of Nicaea.
Inasmuch as I feel any amount of confidence in my theology as a Christian, I feel confident that if the Christian Gospel contains truth, or at least a truth structure that maps onto reality in ways that may be true (theopoetics), even when not literally true, then the doctrine of universal reconciliation, rooted in the epistles of St. Paul, and patristic thinkers like Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa, is something I feel confident confessing (even if it’s debated whether those saints were committed to universal reconciliation themselves). I know it’s a minority position within the church, historically and presently. But if the logicof the Gospel is rooted in reality, i.e., we are reconciled to our Creator who prevented death from being the final word for created things by entering into our material reality in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, including the reality of dying, in order that even the dead may be alive in the Creator, then any created thing (or at least any sentient, created thing) over which death maintains a permanent claim would mean that the Creator has lost something of the creation to the finality of death, meaning that if the Creator is good, then this goodness has been proven limited in that the Creator didn’t redeem all that was brought into existence without consent because the Creator willed that we be brought into existence. If the Creator intends to bring all created things to a point of perfection (never finally reached, but always available to experience = theosis), or to encounter ongoing perfection, then I can live with the theodicy questions raised by Christian doctrine. If not, then I feel that Christian doctrine fails to adequately recognize the problem of theodicy.
I say all that to say that while I have no idea what soteriology is embraced by my favorite alternative rock band of all time, U2, I do find many lines that make my universalist heart happy, and I would like to discuss them through this lens.
Moment of Surrender There’s a line in the song “Moment of Surrender” from the album No Line on the Horizon that has given me a phrase that encapsulates the message of Christian universalism: “It’s not if I believe in love/But if love believes in me”. This isn’t to deny the place of “belief” or “faith” or maybe more importantly “fidelity” to Christianity, but it is to say that there may be something to what I’ve heard others say about the soteriology of the Reformed theologian, Karl Barth, when he talks about how God has elected humanity in Christ. It seems from what I’ve read that Barth never made an explicit, undeniable claim to universalism (correct me if I’m wrong), but that his doctrine of election implied it. If Christ has united divinity and humanity so that God chooses us through Jesus’ humanity, then humanity will be redeemed, even ours. In this sense, what ultimately matters (and here the Reformed tradition may be on to something) is that God elects us, we don’t elect God. It’s not “if I believe in LOVE” (God is LOVE, 1 John 4:8, 16), “but if LOVE believes in me.” If we equate “belief” with “fidelity,” then it’s more important that God shows fidelity to humanity than that we show fidelity to God. God’s fidelity overcomes our infidelity.
Songs of Innocence There are several locations in the album Songs of Innocence where I hear themes of universal reconciliation. In “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)”, we hear of the bands divine encounter with the music of the Ramones. There’s St. Paul’s conversion-like imagery “I woke up at the moment when the miracle occurred/Heard a song that made some sense out of the world” followed by the first line in which I hear hints of universal reconciliation: “Everything I ever lost, now has been returned/In the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard”. The idea of everything that has been lost being returned gets amplified toward the end of the song: “I woke up at the moment when the miracle occurred/I get so many things I don’t deserve/All the stolen voices will someday be returned/The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard”. Again, we have St. Paul’s conversion in the background, followed by a line about grace (“I get so many things I don’t deserve”) that spans out to include more people than Bono when he sings, “All the stolen voices will someday be returned”. The language of “stolen voices” captures beautifully the human condition, where most people who have ever lived have been silenced by forces greater than themselves.
The third song on that album has words that, for me, explain the logic of the doctrine of universal reconciliation. In “California (There Is No End to Love)”, U2 sings “I’ve seen for myself/There’s no end to grief/That’s how I know/That’s how I know/And why I need to know/That there is no/Yeah, there is no end to love/All I know and all I need to know/Is there is no/Yeah, there is no end to love”. The problem of theodicy, put simply, is that if God is Love, and good, and powerful, and has foreknowledge, then it’s legitimate to ask why there’s so much suffering, or as this song says, grief. It seems endless. The logic of universal reconciliation is that if there’s so much grief, then there must be “no end to Love”. Love (God) must out extend the grief/suffering we see, if we are to talk about Love (God) as good, powerful, etc.
Bono and the Edge performing “Until the End of the World” (via Reddit)
Until the End of the World The song “Until the End of the World” from the album Achtung Baby has been one where I’ve heard hints of universal reconciliation. If my memory is correct, when Bono and the Edge used to perform this song live, they’d look as if they were clashing with each other. The Edge pushes Bono back as Bono makes his fingers into horns above his head. I’ve tried to find a clip, but I’ve been unsuccessful. If this memory is correct, and others online share this memory + interpretation, then the song has Jesus and Satan facing off. But the lyrics of the song are clearly about Jesus and Judas, his betrayer:
Haven’t seen you in quite a while/ I was down the hold just passing time/ Last time we met was a low-lit room/ We were as close together as a bride and groom/ We ate the food, we drank the wine/ Everybody having a good time/ Except you/ You were talking about the end of the world
I took the money/ I spiked your drink/ You miss too much these days if you stop to think/ You lead me on with those innocent eyes/ You know I love the element of surprise/ In the garden I was playing the tart/ I kissed your lips and broke your heart/ You/ You were acting like it was the end of the world
That being said, the Gospel of Luke claims that Satan “entered into” Judas before the betrayal (22:3), and the Gospel of John repeats this claim (13:27). So, a song about Jesus and Judas can be easily interpreted as one between Jesus and Satan, as I did many years ago in a post on my old blog: “Satan according to Bono and Mick Jagger”. Where it’s about Judas, Satan, or Satan/Judas, the end of the song is where I find an interesting hint of universalism: “Waves of regret and waves of joy/I reached out for the one I tried to destroy/You, you said you’d wait/’Til the end of the world”. The idea of Judas/Satan reaching out to Jesus is depicted in those Bono/Edge clashes, but as one commenter on my old blog observed: “in the concert I attended and others I have seen videos of their hands just about meet but then don’t meet. Bono is suddenly pulled away and the song climaxes with the Edges’ guitar and Bono sinking to the floor,” hinting at failed reconciliation. But I think they missed something key: the lyrics say “You, you said you’d wait, ’til the end of the world”. The reconciliation couldn’t happen now, but it would happen later. I know there’s much debate over this topic, so I would say that Origen suggested the ultimate salvation of even the devil, but it does seem apparent that some people thought Origen’s teachings might imply this.
I’ll stop here for now. If I think of more songs that carry this theme, maybe I’ll add another post! I think this gets across what I wanted to say though: U2 has some beautiful imagery for pondering the doctrine of universal reconciliation.
As readers of this blog are aware, one of my great frustrations over the past several years has been my inability to find a satisfying way to teach biblical studies in a high school setting. Comparative religion? Check! Theory of religion? Check! American religion? Check! Even philosophy? Check! All these topics have been doable; not perfect, always, but doable! But most of my classes on the Bible have been frustrating. They’ve been the hardest to maintain attention, manage my classroom, create discussion, etc.
The harsh feedback of one student last year was something like this: “This class goes too deep; it covers too much”. We used to offer up to two semesters’ worth. The last versions of these classes were known as “The Hebrew Scriptures” and “The Christian Scriptures”. Loosely, they covered the Tanakh/Old Testament and then the New Testament, dabbling a little in non-canonical literature.
The decision was made to streamline the religious studies catalog going into this year. This included creating a standard class that all students must take as part of their religious studies credit (“Philosophy for Human Flourishing”). And it meant that we’d have a single semester offering of the Bible (“Introduction to the Bible”).
While I’m only a quarter of a year into it, so maybe I’m speaking too soon, I think this was the correct decision. Here are some of the changes that occurred in how I teach the Bible now that I’ve got half the time to do it in:
I spend a unit talking about how we got the Bible: ancient writing, scribal culture, the role of the printing press in standardizing and democratizing access to the Bible, and how we get modern English translations. This was received surprisingly well.
I focus on the basic basics. I mean, I essentially outline the Bible around Abraham, to Moses, to David, to Jesus. I don’t assume any biblical literacy going in. This is wise. I’ve noticed a steep decline in biblical literacy. I assume no pre-knowledge and explain everything like it’s the first time my students are hearing it. For those with some pre-knowledge, they’re able to contribute by asking questions and making observations that thicken the class discussion.
I focus on the canon. While I do explain non-canonical literature, most students in high school taking a class on the Bible (in a private school in Texas) want to study the Bible, not early Jewish and Christian literature in the abstract. I’ll miss reading the Infancy Gospel of Thomas with my students, but I do think most people who enjoy non-canonical literature do so because of their familiarity with canonical literature.
I’ve moved away from deep hermeneutical theory. Now, I will say that for many of my students, the hard work of hermeneutics was the most transformative part of my class. Students may have hated going through the lessons on how we read the Bible in an academic context, but they often expressed that this is where they learned the most. On the other hand, some students struggled and shut down during those lessons, which, for better or worse, I fronted my semesters with. Also, those for whom the Bible is such a sacred object that they’re almost afraid to read it (such actions should be left to a priest or pastor, right?), those lessons could cause them to become defensive. This isn’t to say that I’ve moved away from reading the Bible academically. But instead of explaining how this is done, I just try to model it for them.
I’m more open to my students exploring the Bible as an object of their faith. I think I often taught the teenager I was, and not to the ones I had in the room with me. I needed someone to deconstruct certain fundamentalisms for me. The toxic presentation of the Bible that I experienced in my youth and college years needed fixin’. And I think I tried to introduce my students to academic biblical studies in order to preemptively help them avoid some of the pitfalls of fundamentalist hermeneutics. I still try to be the teacher who gets my students to think about historical, cultural, and other contextual matters; I still try to help them see the challenges of interpretation. But I’m not teaching teenage me. My audience is different, and I think they come to class with a healthier relationship to the Bible, maybe because they haven’t been force-fed it. They want to understand the text, and for many, maybe most, this is not because they want to study the Bible academically, but because they want a basic understanding of the sacred text of their faith. So, I’m trying to be more accommodating to that interest.
I’ve gone back to physical Bibles. I used to print out excerpts. But I think there’s something about holding a book that leads us to take the act of reading more seriously, especially a book like the Bible.
The final thing is outside of my control: class size. Usually, my classes are 20+. I know my public and Catholic school colleagues are probably thinking, “cry me a river,” but 20+ is a lot. This semester, my “Introduction to the Bible” classes are 11 and 14, and next semester, 14 and 20. The smaller numbers have made it more conducive to reading a text closely with a group.
We’ll see if these changes continue to have a positive impact, but I will say that even as I’ve watered down the academic side of things, a lot, I’m having more fun teaching the Bible than I’ve had in years!
I know that there are many people out there who would like to major in something as fun as religious or biblical studies, or go to graduate school to study religion, or seminary to study theology, but because of the inflation related to earning a degree, and because of the demands of life, are unable. If that’s you, and you run across this (unpaid/unsponsored, by the way) blog post, let me make a few recommendations for how you might still get an education a less traditional way.
Religious Studies Andrew Mark Henry, the creator behind the fantastic YouTube page “Religion for Breakfast”, has just launched a new website called “The Religion Department”. Since it’s brand new, there’s a “trailer” that just dropped where he tells you all about what will be offered with a subscription. Let’s just say, it looks fantastic and he’s lined up some excellent professors to contribute. Basic membership (only $99 a year, which is way cheaper than graduate school) gets you a past catalog of classes and access to upcoming ones. Special seminars where you can learn Greek or Coptic, for example, cost a little more, but still look amazing. See the announcement below though. It tells you what you need to know!
Theological Studies I’ve been a long time listener of Tripp Fuller’s podcast “Homebrewed Christianity”. He brings on some of the best guests one can find. And he’s connected to a whole host of amazing theologians, scholars of religion, and biblical scholars (which makes his service a little bit “religious studies,” “theological studies,” and “biblical studies,” but since he leans mostly into theology, that’s how I’m labeling it). Not too long ago, Fuller launched “Theology Class”. There are already 55+ courses in the catalog ranging with topics ranging from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to Process Theology, to Black Theology, to J.R.R. Tolkien, to the “Nones” and deconstruction, and so forth. The offerings align more with progressive/liberal theology, if that’s your taste.
Biblical Studies Finally, both of the aforementioned programs offer Bible-related content, but it’s the team that’s put together the Bible for Normal People podcast that I want to mention with their “Classes for Normal People”. The current catalog has classes ranging from the Infancy Narratives of the Gospels, to the Apocrypha, questions about hell, the origin of the Old Testament, divine violence, and a lot more. Sometimes these courses venture into theological/religious studies as well, so there’s overlap between these three offerings.
I hope someone looking to increase their understanding of these subjects who can’t go the traditional route stumbles across this post and that it helps connect you to these amazing, affordable resources.
A while back, I began a series of posts on Simone Weil’s “vital needs of the human soul” found in her book, The Need for Roots. I got distracted by other things, and by the time I thought of resuming the series, I had begun my Substack “Philosophy of Human Flourishing”. So, the posts are there now! Here are the first two:
The blog of Brian LePort 