- The Comfort and Discomfort of Meaninglessness: Christian Faith in the Time of Coronavirus by Paul Dafydd Jones July 9, 2020
Although the sudden emergence of a novel form of coronavirus might bring Martin Luther to mind, it is revealing that many apparently secular voices are thinking along lines laid down by the venerable John Calvin. Not in the sense that gloomy declarations of “total depravity” are making a comeback, no matter the willingness of many political leaders ...
Read more » - A Conversation about The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics: Humans, Nonhumans, and the Living Landscape, by Mari Joerstad May 13, 2020
Paul Dafydd Jones (University of Virginia, Co-Director of Religion and its Publics) recently interviewed Mari Joerstad (The Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University) about her new book, The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Given the perilous fact of global heating, jaw-dropping rates of animal and plant extinction, the despoliation of previously “untouched” regions, and ...
Read more » - A Portal to a New World – Jane Little on New Beginnings amid a Pandemic for the Things Unseen Podcast April 15, 2020
“We are all on a Vision Quest now.” Religion and Its Publics Associate Director, Jane Little, reflects on whether the pandemic, alongside all the pain and loss it has brought, could also be a new beginning: a portal to a new and better world.
Little’s piece for the Things Unseen podcast, “The First Shall Be ...
Read more » - What Passover in the times of plague can teach us about our shared humanity by Elisabeth Becker-Topkara April 8, 2020
As Jewish children raised in Morningside Heights (also known as Cathedral Parkway), New York City, plagues were a topic reserved for Passover. We children would name the ten plagues faced by the Egyptians, as the Jews were freed (through the leadership of Moses) from slavery in Ancient Egypt: blood, frogs, lice, beasts, cattle disease, boils, ...
Read more » - What is it we most need to understand about religion today?: A Response to the American Academy of Religion’s Religious Literacy Guidelines by Thomas A. Lewis February 18, 2020
“It is important for everyone to develop a capacity to understand how religious perspectives of others shape behaviors. For example, students training in healthcare careers need to learn how religious beliefs affect a person’s willingness to seek care or accept certain treatments.”
AAR Religious Literacy Guidelines
If our goal is to understand how religion informs some of ...
Read more » - A Conversation about The Veiled God: Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Theology of Finitude, by Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft December 19, 2019
Paul Dafydd Jones (University of Virginia) recently interviewed Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft (Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge) about her new book The Veiled God: Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Theology of Finitude (Brill, 2019). The interview, conducted over email, covers the recent surge of interest in Schleiermacher, the nature and range of his corpus, and the relevance of his work today.
PDJ: The study of ...
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