This page will feature lighter and shorter pieces on a variety of topics
FORGETTING AND REMEMBERING: THOUGHTS AT THANKSGIVING
How should we remember the past? In this Thanksgiving season in the US, that question has considerable force. What is our relationship to what has shaped and formed us as a country? What is the story that we will tell this Thanksgiving Day to our children and to ourselves? In my own case, the story might…
THE BIBLE AND MIKE JOHNSON
Can the Bible survive its friends? That question occurred to me again after Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elevated to Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Asked about his approach to governing by Sean Hannity of Fox News, he said, “Someone asked me today in the media, they said, ‘It’s curious, people are curious:…
ARE WE MAKING PROGRESS?
Are we making progress? Are we making progress? I don’t have in mind technology here, although progress in technology makes an interesting test case for the assumptions we make about progress generally. Nor do I have in mind scientific knowledge. Even there the case is more complicated than one might think. But what of moral…