Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4648 )

• Take Twice Daily

  

  Once in a way, when I feel a dusty archaism settling over me, and I realize my eyes don’t focus as well as they once did and that sedentary life in front of a... Read more

  Posted on 03 May 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Lord Have Mercer

  

  Samuel Alfred Browne Mercer was an Assyriologist who failed to establish an academic legacy.  I quickly learned, when consulting his The Tell El-Amarna Tablets... Read more

  Posted on 02 May 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Science Fiction Double Feature

  

  Two news stories last week—one from the Associated Press and one from the Chronicle of Higher Education—hit upon a common theme: scientific illiteracy. Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Education for Hire

  

  Capitalism takes no survivors. Ironically, the very concept of capitalism was the result of deep, intellectual reflection. Not that trade hadn’t existed before... Read more

  Posted on 30 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Irrational Reform State

  

  Since 1954, after the cut-off date for new religions (see yesterday’s post), American children have been making a pledge to an inanimate object with the words,... Read more

  Posted on 29 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Irrational Revelation System

  

  In an article on Obamacare in last week’s paper, Kathleen O’Brien pointed out an interesting dilemma. Some religions, such as the Anabaptist traditions (Amish,... Read more

  Posted on 28 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Targeted Management of Information

  

  Social justice has always been a concern for me. Call it my primate sensibilities. I grew up in humble circumstances, in a religion that helped to ameliorate th... Read more

  Posted on 27 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fleeting Meaning

  

  Just a year before I had been unceremoniously dismissed from a fourteen-year teaching job at Nashotah House, devastating everything I thought I knew. Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• To Thine Own Self

  

  Among the books that I would rate very important, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá’s Sex at Dawn would need to be on top, or nearly so. As I’ve often... Read more

  Posted on 25 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• New York Calvin

  

  So I’m standing at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 29th Street, gazing at Marble Collegiate Church, of the Reformed Church in America.  A cold breeze is... Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• History Department

  

  Rather like an embarrassing personal blemish, many universities tend to hide the fact that they were originally servants of the church.  Ouch!  I know that... Read more

  Posted on 23 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Clearly Religion

  

  “There is no point in questioning Scientology’s standing as a religion; in the United States, the only opinion that really counts is that of the IRS;” so... Read more

  Posted on 22 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Dark Sight

  

  Barbara Brown Taylor is a name about which I wish to learn more. Although Time magazine predictably runs a religious-themed issue around Easter, the year’s cove... Read more

  Posted on 21 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Take a PAAS

  

  Like so much of life, PAAS Easter Egg coloring kits were the result of an accident. To be more specific, a chemical accident in New Jersey, something which is... Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Pair of Docs

  

  I’m not planning any trips anytime soon, but if I were I’d give Pair of Docs Travel a look. The founders of Pair of Docs are friends of mine who’ve also landed... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Ham Awry

  

  Ham, in the movie Noah, is a conflicted figure. I felt a slight chill, I’ll have to admit, when the carnivore Tubal-Cain asked him his name, reminiscent as it i... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Lost Forest

  

  Asherah has, from lack of new material, fallen into a quiet retirement among the gods. For a while there no shortage of new books appeared, including my first,... Read more

  Posted on 17 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Plague

  

  Sitting on the bus next to some guy with a consumptive cough may not be the best place to read Plagues and Peoples. But William H. Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Better Watch Out

  

  Among the more intriguing mythologies of Noah, the movie, is the presence of the “Transformer-like” Watchers. The more biblically literate of the film’s... Read more

  Posted on 15 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Roman Undead

  

  Like most monster movie fans, I enjoy a zombie film now and then. I’ve even heard some very sophisticated people commenting positively on Shaun of the Dead. Read more

  Posted on 14 April 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY