Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4576 )

• 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

• Horsemanship

  

  Hi ho Silver, away! I’ve been pondering academic freedom. (It was suggested to me that I might discourse on such.) My academic career, three years cold in the... Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fashions to Slaves

  

  Howard Thurman was a theologian who held saintly status in my days at Boston University. As an African-American he’d experienced episodes while growing up that... Read more

  Posted on 13 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Dark and Stormy Night

  

  I miss my monsters, especially when I stay away too long. I had eyeballed Roseanne Montillo’s The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Read more

  Posted on 12 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• What I Mean

  

  It might seem, in this world of constant misunderstanding, that we might get along better were it not for the Tower of Babel. I mean, we call it a language... Read more

  Posted on 11 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Sustain This

  

  “Grant me chastity and continence,” Augustine famously prayed, “but not yet.” That tragicomic scene kept coming to me as I read Jeremy L. Caradonna’s... Read more

  Posted on 10 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Dystopian Paradise

  

  Dystopias resonate with me. As I ponder why, two factors seem to rise to the surface: dystopias are inevitably populist in orientation, and I was raised... Read more

  Posted on 09 September 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY