Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4522 )

• Powerful Movies

  

  Our friends were shocked. I don’t even remember the title of the movie, but they couldn’t believe we had gone to see it. Not because of the content of the... Read more

  Posted on 28 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Rutgers Presbyterian

  

  It is indeed an honor to be invited to address a church group on topics that matter. While I didn’t directly address global warming in my book, it was in my min... Read more

  Posted on 27 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Pontificating

  

  I’ve been in a few New York crowds, but this one seemed on its best behavior. I was in the city later than usual since I’m giving a talk today at a friend’s... Read more

  Posted on 26 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Apostle

  

  I was teaching in a seminary when Robert Duvall’s The Apostle came out. Seeing the favorable reviews, I put it on my wish-list and somehow it never managed to... Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Boy on the Bus

  

  Commuting by bus isn’t the most efficient way to do research. While mostly I read non-fiction related to my research interests, monographs are difficult... Read more

  Posted on 24 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Spirit of Nature

  

  The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame’s children’s classic, was a book I first read during my doctoral studies. In the UK professors are likely to be able... Read more

  Posted on 23 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Pope-ulation

  

  My brother, who art near Philadelphia, recently told me that the City of Brotherly Love began towing cars from the no park zone a week before the Pope’s... Read more

  Posted on 22 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Soaring Prophets

  

  Okay, so I pulled the book off the shelf, and I feel now like I need to read it. Call it an occupational hazard. Josef F. Blumrich’s The Spaceships of Ezekiel,... Read more

  Posted on 21 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Climate of Belief

  

  As I’ve noted before, in our culture where an individual voice is hard to hear, those without institutional affiliation are generally considered self-promoting... Read more

  Posted on 20 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Anabaptist Higher Education

  

  There’s strength in numbers. This is a biblical concept as well as a folk saying (although it is worded differently in the Good Book). Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Galileo’s Tool

  

  Early in my academic career I got into trouble not because a Harvard professor hadn’t adequately checked his data, but because I had pointed out that a Harvard... Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Ezekiel’s Drones

  

  Drones have become a fact of life. Our robotic future is already present as unmanned vehicles do the bidding of their remote commanders. They are our... Read more

  Posted on 17 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Doubting Dawkins

  

  A recent Guardian introspective on Richard Dawkins reminded me of the dangers of idolatry. Dawkins, an internationally known intellectual pugilist, the article... Read more

  Posted on 16 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Henging Our Bets

  

  With the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, the history of civilization has received an unexpected prologue. In the view of the archaeologists involved in the... Read more

  Posted on 15 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Hunter-Gatherers

  

  Every once in a while I put down my work long enough to look at where we are. It’s often a frightening experience. Not many of us would be equipped to survive... Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Biblical Violence

  

  Sarah L. Winchester, it is said, was a haunted woman. The widow of William Winchester, she was heir to the tremendous amount of money brought in by sales of... Read more

  Posted on 13 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Day After

  

  I don’t mean to be insensitive. Sometimes I get so busy that I don’t even look at the date for days at a time. This can’t be good, but I was surprised when the... Read more

  Posted on 12 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Psychobabel

  

  Evolution, we’re told, has one goal: survival. As an unthinking process of nature, evolution “programs” us all to desire survival for ourselves and our... Read more

  Posted on 11 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The End of the Gods

  

  Hovering somewhere between fiction and fact, A. S. Byatt’s Ragnarök: The End of the Gods is a compelling reimagining of Norse mythology. Read more

  Posted on 10 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• School Bible

  

  As a very young scholarlet, I recall the horror expressed when some form of prayer was expelled from public schools. It had to have been in the late ’60’s. Mayb... Read more

  Posted on 09 September 2015 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY