Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 276

The Star of Bethlehem

Is the Star of Bethlehem a mythological element in the Nativity stories of the gospels? I highly recommend The Star–a documentary by filmmaker Steve McEveety. Modern software allowing researchers to re-create the night sky at any date in history and at any place around the globe show what the star of Bethlehem was and what it [...]

What Do Historians Think of the Gospels?

Are the gospels reliable as historical accounts? In an earlier post I wrote that the gospels are unique ancient documents. They are not written primarily as historical accounts by professional historians. Instead they are the collected stories, memories and experiences of the community of Jesus Christ’s disciples. Therefore we treat them as the documents they [...]

From the Archives

For some reason, since I’ve moved this blog over to Patheos my alter egos seem to have left me. I don’t know why but Caitlin O’Rourke, Duane Mandible, Mrs Brady, Todd Unctuous and Mantilla the Hon–even the Vicar don’t seem to be haunting my imagination any longer. Alas! What are we to do? Is it [...]

Get Serious!

The cover of this book has a picture of the Titanic sinking and the sub title–A Survival Guide for Serious Catholics. Just right. Too many Catholics in America are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic when they should be planning their spiritual survival. The author–Fr James Farfaglia– is one of those passionate, gung ho, happy [...]

Spiritual AND Religious

Why does this “spiritual but not religious” lie get me so wound up? I think it is because there are so many levels of the lie packed into one little cliche. The first lie is the idea that somebody can be “spiritual but not religious” at all. How does one go about being “spiritual”? The [...]

Spiritual but Not Christian

The more I ponder the “spiritual but not religious” cliche the more I see that it is not only creepy but also non-Christian. The essence of the Christian faith is sacrifice. First Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and our self sacrifice as we seek to emulate him and follow his command that “unless you take [...]

Are the Gospels Historical?

Anyone who wishes to engage in a thoughtful and intelligent exploration of the Christian faith will have to ask whether the gospels are historically reliable. Can we believe that the stories in the gospels are a true and accurate account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? In answering this question the first thing to [...]

Authoritarian Anglicans

Here is the great irony: the people who dismantled traditional Christianity by the democratic process are now dismantling the democratic process.  In other words the tyranny of the ballot box is being replaced by just plain tyranny. This article analyzes what is happening with the ruling ranks of the Episcopal Church of the USA. The [...]

Go with the Flow

How does God work in the world? It seems to me that his goodness, truth, beauty and grace flows out to the whole world all the time as an active, outgoing force. It’s like this: when I was a boy I used to like making dams in the stream that ran through our country property. [...]

CofE Women Bishops?

Melanie McDonagh speaks plain about the Church of England’s dithering over women bishops. Go here.