Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4647 )

• Eating Your Prophets

  

  Ezekiel was an odd character, even for a prophet. He’s become a kind of patron saint to ancient astronaut theorists, and his name in fiction often denotes... Read more

  Posted on 13 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Sweet Something

  

  As an observer of religion who always struggles to get published, I found a companion soul in Jeff Sharlet’s Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Importance of Being Published

  

  The crowd over at The Atlantic Monthly magazine are a formidable lot. Even with a Ph.D. and a modicum of writing ability, I’ve been frightened off from ever... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Almost Human?

  

  Last week the New York Times ran a story on the efforts of the Nonhuman Rights Project to have chimpanzees declared “legal persons. Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Making a Monster

  

  I was maybe six or seven when Frankenstein’s monster charged us. My mother, brothers, and I were part of a small crowd at Niagara Falls, where we had gone to... Read more

  Posted on 09 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Help from Above

  

  Frisbee, like Kleenex and Band-Aid, is a brand name that has become generic. Since at least the time of ancient Greece people have been fascinated with flying... Read more

  Posted on 08 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Deep Religion

  

  Bosnia-Herzegovina is a nation well acquainted with disruption. The tangled history of the Balkans and the misplaced zealotry of political machinery has left... Read more

  Posted on 07 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Appreciate Your Job

  

  At a gathering of friends recently, a game of trivia broke out. Well, it was actually planned because we were not using the cards and pie wedges that we grew... Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Poe Knows

  

  A recent trip to Baltimore prompted me to read Benjamin F. Fisher’s The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe. Well, that and the fact that I had purchased... Read more

  Posted on 05 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Sunday Best

  

  When my rural, northwestern Pennsylvania shows up in the news, I pay attention. An Associated Press story recently appeared concerning Rev. Chris Terbush of... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Explained Away

  

  The premise seems sound. Although science tends to indicate that God is not necessary to explain anything, religion itself may still be useful. In a nutshell,... Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Schrödinger’s Luggage

  

  I recently had the misfortune of flying on Delta Airlines. In all honesty I suppose my antipathy to Delta began with a flight on which I was not actually a... Read more

  Posted on 02 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Blown Away

  

  With the weather that has dropped down over much of the US this past week, I can’t help but think of the religious implications of the weather once again. Read more

  Posted on 01 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Word of God in Bulk

  

  The Salem witch trials were still half a century in the future. The Puritans, hoping for religious freedom, had come to Massachusetts. Read more

  Posted on 30 November 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Bleak Friday

  

  Among the high holy days of capitalism, Black Friday stands as a beacon for those in the service of Mammon. It seems that we’ve taken the basic process of fair... Read more

  Posted on 29 November 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Unusual Thanksgiving

  

  Believe it or not, preaching was once part of my job description. At Nashotah House all faculty were called to the pulpit, ordained or not. Read more

  Posted on 28 November 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Reach Out and

  

  Carl Sagan, one of the great proponents of the idea that earthlings have never been visited by aliens, wrote a novel entitled Contact. Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Imagine Images

  

  “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water... Read more

  Posted on 26 November 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Some Baltimore Lessons

  

  As someone who hovers around the edges, perhaps I’m preoccupied with perceptions. I have been attending the American Academy of Religion and Society of... Read more

  Posted on 25 November 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Write Place

  

  In my mind, Baltimore is inextricably bound to Edgar Allan Poe. From the accounts of Poe’s life, it is clear that he sensed nowhere as a welcoming home. Read more

  Posted on 24 November 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY