My thanks go out to Tyler McNabb and Michael DeVito for having me on their show Furthering Christendom to talk about my book Dark Passages of the Bible. It was a lot of fun to talk about some questions that I did n
ot address in that book in detail (Noah’s flood, Elisha and the mauling she-bears, the death of the Egyptian firstborn, and Israel’s slaughter of enemy men, women, and children. Here’s a link to the episode!
Monthly Archives: November 2020
A New Textbook: Christ’s Church & World Religions
My latest book contribution has recently been released. This one is a high school textbook for World Religions classes. Actually, as its title Christ’s Church and World Religions clarifies, it’s not just about these religions but also about understanding and evaluating them in light of Jesus Christ and the teaching of the Catholic Church. Following the teachings of our popes and the Second Vatican Council, it also explores how studying these traditions can enrich the faith of Christians.
I authored the main essays that comprise the body of this volume, which also includes supplementary materials composed by teachers for use in the high school classroom. There’s also a separate teacher’s guide authored by experienced high school teachers. I can’t recommend this text highly enough to those who have high school kids, to homeschooling families, to and really anyone who wants a basic introduction to this subject that follows the bishops’ guidelines for its teaching.
PS: The book’s title speaks of world religions, but it is also a book about ecumenism, as it includes chapters that treat Protestant and Orthodox Christianity. And, as a bonus, it also treats atheism as a religious phenomenon!
“Machine or Melody? Joseph Ratzinger on Divine Causality in Evolutionary Creation”
I am thrilled to announce that I’ve just published an article for a special issue of the academic journal Scientia et Fides dedicated to Philosophical and Theological Aspects of Evolution. The essay, entitled “Machine or Melody? Joseph Ratzinger on Divine Causality in Evolutionary Creation,” argues that creation should be thought of less as an intelligently designed machine that requires divine interventions for its development and more as a divine drama or masterpiece story that is continually being told as its plot unfolds naturally over the course of time.
Scientia et Fides is a peer-reviewed, online academic journal published twice a year by the Faculty of Theology of Nicolaus Copernicus University, in Torun, in collaboration with the research group “Science, Reason and Faith” (CRYF) at the University of Navarra. My article, along with the other essays recently published, is available free here.