Here's something I wrote for a friend a couple years ago. She has kindly allowed me to share it here. This is for her, for my daughters, and for all daughters.    What I Used To Dr...

Sophomore philosophy students and internet atheists love to cry, "No True Scotsman" any time they see someone say, "Terrorists aren't Muslim," or "Hitler wasn't a Christian." This application of the N...

From Derrick Crowe: Folks, if you're getting bent out of shape about the phase "Black Lives Matter," and feel the need to respond with "All Lives Matter," think about our history a little b...

I was asked how my scholarship on biblical rape texts preaches the good news of Jesus Christ. By proclaiming liberty when the text does not. — Rev. Wil Gafney I am reminded again of my appreciati...

If Richard Dawkins is honestly interested in liberating women oppressed by patriarchal religions—that is to say, if he's not just interested in the suffering of religious women as a foil for his ath...

Jesus, why you so angry? We get it already. You have some problems with your religious leaders and institutions. But why you no focus on the positive? Why you always gots to be so negative? That whi...

I was fortunate enough to be able to make two films this past summer, both featuring my brother Jim. I've known for about a month that one of them, Revolution, is to win an award at this year's WorldF...

Treat yourself to lunch: ...

One of the films I made last summer, Revolution, has been selected to screen (twice) at the 46th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. This marks the second year in a row Jim Stark's g...

I'm very pleased to be able to say that my professor, Chris Rollston, has officially accepted a visiting professorship at George Washington University beginning in the Spring semester. You can read hi...

Dr. P. Kyle McCarter, the William Foxwell Albright Professor of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, has written a lengthy open letter in support of Dr. Rollston...

Bob Cargill has issued an open call for letters in support of Dr. Christopher Rollston. The first to respond is none other than Dr. Athalya Brenner herself, a Jewish biblical scholar at the University...

It is no secret that Paul Ryan has been an enthusiastic devotee of the moral and economic philosophies of Ayn Rand. At a gathering of Ayn Rand acolytes in 2005, Ryan said, "The reason I got involved i...

The previous post here I have dedicated as a “sacred space,” a place where students can share their appreciation for Dr. Rollston without appearing to be taking sides in the politics of this growi...

Much has been said over the past six weeks to disparage the character of Dr. Christopher Rollston as an academic and a Christian. But what has been painted is a distorted and ultimately false portrait...

Today, Inside Higher Education published an exposé revealing pieces of information surrounding Dr. Christopher Rollston's plight at Emmanuel Christian Seminary. It brings to the forefront a letter wr...

[The following is a heavily expanded version of a comment the author left on Paul Blowers's blog post] Much ink has been spilt recently over the treatment of a beloved professor of mine – namely, P...

Dr. Paul Blowers has now posted a response to some of his critics over his public criticisms of and institutional maneuvers against Dr. Christopher Rollston. In the comment thread, Dr. Bob Cargill...

Since I wrote my analysis of the fiscally-driven controversy surrounding Dr. Chris Rollston's anything-but-controversial Huffington Post article, several others have weighed in with support for Dr. Ro...

In last night's debate, Mitt Romney accused President Obama of being hyper-partison, using the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) as his sole example. Romney's logic was that, since no Republicans voted ...

Before I begin with the story and mount my defense of Dr. Rollston against his cultured despisers, I need to make clear that I wrote this post without Dr. Rollston’s knowledge. Dr. Rollston has no k...

You've heard it from the media, from your colleagues at work, from behind the pulpit, and out in the street. The so-called "Muslim World" is on fire, irrational religious mobs are perpetrating sensele...

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox steals a technologically advanced spacecraft. He's not actually sure why he does this; he's President of the Galaxy and thus not in particul...

Once, when I was teaching music at a Christian college, I was trying to explain some arcane bit of theory when one of the students blurted out, "That's gay." "Please," I replied, "let's not use the...

I've been thinking a lot about apocalypse. It might be because I'm reading The Walking Dead (a zombie apocalypse graphic novel) and Y: The Last Man (all the men on the planet except for one mysterious...

What a long, strange trip it's been.  I (successfully) defended my dissertation in May. It was an interesting if grueling process, and as formative and educational as writing the disse...

This second part of my response to Richard Carrier will deal essentially with the interpretation of three texts: Daniel 9:24-27, Isaiah 52:7-53:12, and 11QMelchizedek. I will spend the bulk of my time...

Richard Carrier has responded to some of my criticisms of his pre-Christian Dying Messiah thesis. He cites my first response and links to it, but only casually mentions my second, longer critique, and...

A commenter on my two posts on Richard Carrier’s Dying Messiah Debacle brought up the fact that Targum Jonathan’s version of Isa 53:12 seems to say that the Messiah does in fact die. It literally ...

My first film, Note to Self, which won the Platinum Remi Award at the 45th Annual Worldfest Houston International Film Festival, is now available for free online streaming at notetoselfmovie.com. It i...

Richard Carrier has confidently stated that in some of the comments on his blog he has “refuted” “most” of my critique of his claims about a pre-Christian Dying Messiah (he says so here and he...

Mythicist Neil Godfrey has displayed perhaps one of the reasons he's a mythicist: his poor reading comprehension. On the comment thread of a score-tallying post (because scholarship is sport for those...

UPDATE: There is a Part Two to this post here. If your head has been in the sand the past few years, a Jesus Mythicist is someone who believes that Jesus of Nazareth is not a historical figure, but...

Not long ago, I had a dream in which I rediscovered what it was like to believe in God -- a dreamscape epiphany. It was gone when I woke, of course, but I half-remember the feeling of something "click...

A struggling Christian who shall remain anonymous emailed me with some questions about how to understand his struggles with some of the ignoble content in the Bible. I thought they were worthwhile, so...

Denny Burk, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College (of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), has published a review of my book, The Human Faces of God, in the Southern Bapti...

Denny Burk has posted his review of my book, a review published by the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. (Some of my readers may remember Denny Burk from this earlier post.) I'll write a proper re...

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles...

So the news has just broken that a Moroccan girl has committed suicide after being ordered by a judge to marry her rapist. Now before some self-righteous Christians begin mouthing off about how unenli...

The Worldfest — Houston International Film Festival is the third oldest film festival in the United States, after New York and San Francisco. It's also the oldest international film festival in the ...

Marvin stood at the end of the bridge corridor. He was not in fact a particularly small robot. His silver body gleamed in the dusty sunbeams and shook with the continual barrage which the building w...

I recently referred to myself as a "postsecular atheist," which I think might be fairly accurate if I knew what it meant. I've been wondering about that. Insisting that I'm technically a theological n...

Top 20 Worst Films of 2011 20. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows 19. Rise of the Planet of the Apes 18. X-Men: First Class 17. Thor 16. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides 15. Transform...

I am a terrorist sympathizer. I sympathize with the women who live in poverty and fear, under the thumb of dictators installed by alien powers. I sympathize with the clerics who have witnessed a...

A college buddy of mine posted a quote on my Facebook wall today, a quote from a song I wrote back in 1999, at age 16. That instigated a revisitation of all the bad music I've written over the years. ...

Matt Flannagan is on a crusade to prove that I'm an untrustworthy, incorrigible, incompetent, lying sack of shit, and that no one should like me. All he's shown, however, is that he's guilty of all th...

Matt Flannagan has taken to gloating in the fact that in my last post I made a few open and happy concessions to his criticisms, while at the same time he refuses to acknowledge that the vast majority...

Matt Flannagan continues to try to discredit me by avoiding all the substance and most salient points of my arguments and focusing on what he thinks are contradictions in my writing or misuses of scho...

Here's a black & white version of the teaser trailer for Note to Self. The composer is currently hard at work on the score, and we hope to have a release ready by early 2012. In the meantime, enjo...

Matthew Flannagan is apparently a glutton for punishment. He's certainly an accomplished straw-man artist. But what else is new? In my review of Copan's book, I critiqued Copan for stating that Joshua...