Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4646 )

• Maltese Faction

  

  The Crusades remain one of the most celebrated episodes of religious violence in the history of the church. I am certain that many would put forward other... Read more

  Posted on 11 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• God’s Country Club?

  

  Heaven is a sparsely populated place. Considering its vast celestial real estate, vis-a-vis the earth, it must be downright lonely. Maybe that’s the way the... Read more

  Posted on 10 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Peculiar Mythology

  

  Confession: I love books like Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Ambiguity in fiction is under-appreciated at times. Read more

  Posted on 09 February 2013 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Rise of Religions

  

  Imagine my surprise when, as a boy raised in a fundamentalist family, I arrived at a liberal seminary to find myself accused of sexism. Like most kids I had bee... Read more

  Posted on 08 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Scouting for Boys

  

  I guess losing a bid for a presidential nomination sanctions a guy to speak for God. Of course, that goes for just about any Republican these days. Read more

  Posted on 07 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Real World Ethics

  Do yourself a favor. Spend five minutes watching this video:Although it has a whiff of the apocryphal about it, I choose to believe that Kai is really who he... Read more

  Posted on 06 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Secular Oaths

  

  “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,” so begins the story. With President Obama’s second... Read more

  Posted on 05 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Poe

  

  On his birthday I began reading a biography of Edgar Allan Poe. The last biography of Poe I read, I’m embarrassed to admit, was in high school. To me Poe is lik... Read more

  Posted on 04 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• On a Wager and a Prayer

  

  I’ve been thinking about Job a lot lately. Not my job, but the biblical book. Way back when I was preparing my initial classnotes on Job, I remember a... Read more

  Posted on 03 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Ad Lib

  

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I’ve had a notion to research and write a book on the history of “bad words.” Being raised Evangelical, I had a preternatural... Read more

  Posted on 02 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Invoking Imbolc

  

  As the year continues her eternal circle, we find ourselves once again at Imbolc, the cross-quarter day between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Read more

  Posted on 01 February 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• On My Honor

  

  Some old fashioned institutions fear new learning. Although I was a Boy Scout for only a couple of years, I grew up in Cub Scouts and Webelos and had a pretty... Read more

  Posted on 31 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Mercurial Monotheism

  

  A friend recently asked about Isaiah 45.7, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. Read more

  Posted on 30 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Know Thyself

  

  Perhaps it is a perverted sign of the times, but sometimes I seek myself online. Not surprisingly, most of what I find there is stuff I’ve posted myself. Read more

  Posted on 29 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Old-Tyme Religion

  

  Run, two, three, jump, slap, run, two, three, jump. I can’t believe that I’m Molly dancing on a January afternoon with total strangers and it’s just over... Read more

  Posted on 28 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Avenge This

  

  Recently rewatching The Avengers I noticed a subtext that had escaped me the first couple of times I saw it. When Loki explains to his victims why he is... Read more

  Posted on 27 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Moocher Man

  

  Influenza seems to be going around. Since I spend at least three hours a day on a crowded bus I get to observe all kinds of uncouth behavior. Not that I’m alway... Read more

  Posted on 26 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Stonefaced

  

  Imagine, if you will, life on the open sea. Back in the whaling days. Days before enlightenment really took hold. Transpose that thought onto railroads. In a da... Read more

  Posted on 25 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Rational Religion

  

  God, Reason and Religion, the title of Steven M. Cahn’s book, fit uneasily together. Or so it would seem. Cahn, a philosophy professor, collected together in... Read more

  Posted on 24 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Neander Valley

  

  Because we can—but should we? This is technological ethics in a nutshell. While we are still debating what it means to be human and the majority of people in th... Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY