HuffPost: Science and the Ups and Downs of Christ’s Ascension
by Brandon on May 17, 2012
My newest post (“Science and the Ups and Downs of Christ’s Ascension”) is up at The Huffington Post. Today is the Feast of Ascension for Christian churches that observe the liturgical calendar. As an historian, I’m interested in the intersection of ideas with their historical contexts, and the ascension of Christ (and consequently the return of Christ) is a theological concept intimately tied to an ancient worldview.
In the ancient world, heaven was considered above the earth. In our world today, we call that space. How does this change in cosmology affect these very central Christian beliefs? Read and find out.
May 17 is known as Ascension Thursday (the 40th day of Easter). It is the day many Christians observe Christ’s ascension into heaven, though some will do it on the following Sunday. The day means many things to Christians, including the idea that Christ will also one day descend from heaven in his return.
What intrigues me about the ascension of Christ is not only what it tells me about the ancient world and its “scientific” knowledge of the universe, but also what it tells me about many Christians today.
Read the whole article at The Huffington Post.
HuffPost: Study Shows That Left-handers Are Not the Product of Witchcraft After All
by Brandon on May 3, 2012
I had one of those weeks where I suddenly had several ideas for articles at The Huffington Post. Given that I was breaking away from a couple of months of writer’s block, I indulged myself. “Study Shows That Left-handers Are Not the Product of Witchcraft After All” is my newest and it appears in the science section of HuffPost.
A new study at Northwestern University shows that left-handedness is the product of cooperation and competition in evolution (see ScienceDaily, “Shedding Light On Southpaws: Sports Data Help Confirm Theory Explaining Left-Handed Minority in General Population”).
Being left-handed, I am among the minority of the population (10 percent), and this study by Daniel M. Abrams and Mark J. Panaggio (see “A Model Balancing Cooperation and Competition Can Explain Our Right-handed World and the Dominance of Left-handed Athletes” in The Journal of the Royal Society Interface) shows why. The highly social nature of humanity tends toward cooperation, and in this case, this means right-handedness. Continue reading the full article at The Huffington Post.
HuffPost: What Stephen Colbert is Not Telling You
by Brandon on May 1, 2012
My newest is up at The Huffington Post (“What Stephen Colbert is Not Telling You”) and it is a hard hitting piece for the comedy section—a real exposé. In it, I get at the true reasons behind The Colbert Report.
I’m on to you, Colbert.
The Colbert Report is your way of accomplishing your over-the-top bucket list, isn’t it? You just have a bigger budget than the rest of us. Read it in full at The Huffington Post.
HuffPost: Enough with Co-opting Jesus for Every Political Agenda
by Brandon on April 26, 2012
My newest post, “Enough with Co-opting Jesus for Every Political Agenda,” is up at HuffPost. After a couple months of just terrible writer’s block, I think I might finally be getting back to being creative. This new post takes a stab at the use of Jesus as a tool for political agendas. Here it is:
It is not surprising…that amid economic injustice, poverty, and rising class warfare that Jesus is regularly co-opted for a particular economic system or political agenda. From the worldviews of the Tea Party to the protests of Occupy Wall Street, Jesus becomes metamorphic. Read “Enough with Co-opting Jesus for Every Political Agenda” at The Huffington Post.
Jonathan Edwards and Evolution – Part 1 and 2
by Brandon on April 24, 2012
Becoming Divine: Jonathan Edwards’s Incarnational Spirituality within the Christian Tradition (Cascade, 2011)
This week I’m guest blogging at Peter Enns’ Patheos blog, Rethinking Biblical Christianity. It is a two-part series based on my new book, Becoming Divine: Jonathan Edwards’s Incarnational Spirituality within the Christian Tradition, in which I follow a strand of thought in Edwards’s view of the Bible as a book written in a culture, time, and place. Part two will be up on Thursday.
Jonathan Edwards was one of the most important voices in the formation of evangelicalism in the 18th century. Read the rest of this entry »
On using Becoming Divine as a textbook
by Brandon on April 20, 2012
This last semester I had a chance to use my new book, Becoming Divine: Jonathan Edwards’s Incarnational Spirituality within the Christian Tradition, as a text for my class. When I wrote the book, I had in mind that it could be used for a couple of my courses, particularly part 1 of the book, which has a significant amount of background material that comes from my lecture preparation.
When you spend several years putting a book together and then it gets published, Read the rest of this entry »
