Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4522 )

• Books on Wheels

  

  Some unexpected serendipities transport you to childhood. Somewhere on Interstate 80 I passed a bookmobile. The notion felt strangely old-fashioned in this... Read more

  Posted on 04 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Trisagion

  

  Irony is all around. When we hook words up into phrases or titles they often take on unexpected connotations. I often see the sign for Jesus’ Bookstore on a... Read more

  Posted on 03 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Growing Up

  

  I am in two minds about Sam Harris’s Waking Up. Literally. I haven’t read Harris since The End of Faith, and I have to admit that I found Waking Up to be a... Read more

  Posted on 02 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Theological Cemetery

  

  Implosion is a word frequently associated with demolition. Implosions are episodes where buildings collapse in upon themselves, in theory, harming no one on... Read more

  Posted on 01 October 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Dirty Words

  

  I don’t have any bumper-stickers on my car. As clever as I may think any particular one to be, driving down the highway is not the place that I want other... Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Knockin’ Where?

  

  For a while, when I was with Routledge, I tried to kick-start the old series Biblical Limits. I didn’t initiate the series, but it had been cutting edge at the... Read more

  Posted on 29 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Cuneiform Lover

  

  I’m busy. Too busy most of the time. You see, I used to be able to keep my mental files neatly in order. Recall was swift and efficient. Read more

  Posted on 28 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Ironic Icons

  

  The Annals of Improbable Research every year offer up the Ignobel Prize for research that is bound to raise a condescending smile from the perspicacious. Read more

  Posted on 27 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Casing the Promised Land

  

  In one of the great ironies of the English language “flammable” and “inflammable” mean the same thing. Sometimes an extra syllable can make all the difference. Read more

  Posted on 26 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Afraid for God

  

  Reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, is not easy. It is, however, rewarding. Appropriate for Banned Book Week, we might want to remind ourselves... Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Academic Freedom

  

  Azusa Pacific University, 2013. Emmanuel Christian Seminary, 2012. Interdenominational Theological Center, 2012. University of Illinois, 2010. Carroll College,... Read more

  Posted on 24 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Lola Lolita

  

  As a father, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is difficult to read. With Banned Book Week upon us, however, and with my wife suggesting I read Reading Lolita in Tehran... Read more

  Posted on 23 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Acts of Apostles

  

  “Manifesto,” the poem that launched Banned Book Week 2010, was written by banned author Ellen Hopkins. As a perspicacious undergraduate I know pointed out,... Read more

  Posted on 22 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• All Things Being Equal

  

  Today the light and darkness are equal. The equinox is the great equalizer of the year, the day that reminds us summer’s ebullience is always, and ever will onl... Read more

  Posted on 21 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Bargain Basement

  

  Signs, in my experience at least, lend themselves to being over-read. How often a heedless moment suggests something more than was intended—signs try to say... Read more

  Posted on 20 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Banned Magic

  

  “If you believe in the power of magic,” Eric Woolfson plaintively sang, “then I can change your mind.” A song that bewitched my younger years, when the... Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Centuries and Millennia

  

  This past week I had a look at Christian Century. It has been about a century since I’ve read it, so I noticed quite a few changes in that time. Magazines in... Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• ET Vs UAC

  

  When I first heard of “unaccompanied alien children,” I hope I might be forgiven for thinking about ET. Or EBEs as they’re sometimes called, “Extraterrestrial... Read more

  Posted on 17 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Disarmament

  

  Maybe it’s just where I cast my attention, but debates over belief or unbelief seem to be everywhere these days. The word “militant” is used to describe belief... Read more

  Posted on 16 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fighting with Monsters

  

  The Lady and Her Monsters reminded me of Gothic. A friend of mine in seminary showed me this “shocking” movie by Ken Russell just after it was released on VHS (... Read more

  Posted on 15 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY