Religion Commons^™

Serve And Volley, Micah Riecker

On Earth As It Is

It’s Sunday and You’re inundated but I’m not asking for anything except a few moments of your time. Your eyes, Lord, and an ear, if I may.

December 17, 1977, Mattox Roesch

On Earth As It Is

Lord, the storm woke me tonight, at least, that’s what I remember.

The Santa Who Laughs, Chantel Tattoli

On Earth As It Is

There are faces of toast bearing your visage on Ebay. MARY IS MY HOMEGIRL tee shirts. A flash drive in your image Mary marketed for its capacity to keep 512 MB of data en womb: “Oh Maria, keep my data safe” engraved on your halo and your LED heart red-blinking while data transfers over. But you are too much a saint to mind it. Or maybe you’ve learned to take cruel jokes. That?

Center Of The Universe, Joe Sullivan

On Earth As It Is

Raining this morning, and

she’s sick again, lying

next to you, as a

mini-you. I’m putting

my clothes on in the

dark again, about to

leave, about to wonder

how your day will evolve.

Practice, Ray Vukcevich

On Earth As It Is

Meditation is hard. You try, you fail. There is that straight spine business, and the folding of the legs, and the breathing -- in and out, in and out, and the way words just keep poking their noses into your mental tent, dragging your attention away from the movement of air through one nostril or the other, sometimes both, all the aches and pains to ignore or embrace. Yes, it's a struggle, but the rewards are great -- the control of time itself, the wonderful realization that all the moments of your existence don't necessarily occur in any particular order. …

Two Poems, Nancy Scott

On Earth As It Is

The glue holding the kitchen chair legs

is gone; dried in some season

I didn't see coming or going

and the windows need washing again.

For You, Adam Jordan

On Earth As It Is

I checked the bush. I tried the sky, the crickets' legs, soccer fields, and apples' cores. I stoodunder thunderclouds, kitchen counters, catechism teachers inside superstores. I studied Crusoe's isolation after Harold and the Purple Crayon.

After Eden, Tracey S. Rosenberg

On Earth As It Is

Why are you laughing as you send me away? I'm not done.

There are fresh grasses I want to roll in,

buzzing fizzing fairies to chase like a spring kitten

(I promise to set them free, every last one).

When you let me come in, there was no one else you wanted.

Two Poems, Danniel Schoonebeek

On Earth As It Is

The word for what you want from me is novena,which means

nine days I will shave your beard and tell you: what falls

wants to rest with what falls, which is why your beard

wants to rest with the leaves in the trash bag, and why

when the leaves fall, what you want is to rest with me.

Grace, Brooks Sterritt

On Earth As It Is

At the table, ready to eat. I hope they don’t ask me to bless the food. They do. “Be present at our table…” Nervous. Can they hear doubt in my voice? Everpresent, effervescent Lord, we beseech thee to pencil us in for a brief moment of conscience-assuagement and dietary protection. “...be here and everywhere adored...” How great thou art: here, there, and everywhere, hence it should be effortless to come down, enter into my consciousness for a yoctosecond.

Dear God, Barbara Shoup

On Earth As It Is

Dear God,

Okay, first, full disclosure: I don’t believe You are a You.

Of course, if I’m wrong and You are a You, You already know this—and everything else, for that matter. And if You really are the all powerful You so many people imagine, the one with long white hair sitting on a throne in heaven (wherever that is), maybe You’ve got Your finger raised right now, pondering whether to unleash that lightning bolt and smite me for being insubordinate.

Indian Christian Historiography From Below, From Above, And In Between., Chad M. Bauman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The article reviews the books "India and the Indianness of Christianity: Essays on Understanding--Historical, Theological, and Bibliographical--in Honor of Eric Frykenberg," edited by Richard Fox Young, part of the Studies in the History of Christian Missions series, and "A Social History of Christianity: North-west India Since 1800," by John C.B. Webster.

Political Theology In A Postsecularist Key, Brent A. R. Hege

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

A review of Clayton Crockett, Radical Political Theology: Religion and Politics after Liberalism. Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. $50.00 216 pp. ISBN: 9780231149822

Robots, Rights And Religion, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

If there is one area in which science fiction has failed to quickly become historical fact, it is in the field of artificial intelligence (A.I.). While some continue to prophesy that machine minds that are indistinguishable from human ones are just around the corner, many others in the field have become far more skeptical. All the while, there have been at least a few who have consistently found the whole idea problematic for reasons unrelated to our technical abilities, in particular the implications A.I. seems to have for our understanding of human personhood. For example, in his 1993 book The …

Review Of Introduction To Modern Theology: Trajectories In The German Tradition, Brent Hege

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Review of Introduction to Modern Theology: Trajectories in the German Tradition.

The Blogging Revolution: New Technologies And Their Impact On How We Do Scholarship, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

What follows below is the text of my presentation at the session on blogging and online publication at the Society of Biblical Literature 2010 annual meeting in Atlanta.

The Suffering Of God? The Divine Love And The Problem Of Suffering In Classical And Process-Relational Theisms., Brent A. R. Hege

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Not quite twenty-five years ago, theologian Ronald Goetz surveyed the landscape of late twentieth-century theology to find that “the ancient theopaschite heresy that God suffers has, in fact, become the new orthodoxy.”2 The shifting commitments and methodological assumptions contributing to this seemingly radical reorientation of Christian thought concerning the doctrine of God are varied and complex, but we might consider a few important questions to discern whether the theopaschite trend in contemporary theology powerfully and faithfully speaks good news in our time, and whether it does so more effectively than the classical doctrine of divine impassibility.

Lord, Ken Baumann

On Earth As It Is

ConAgra, bread-keeper; save us from our misery.
The stores dried up, people float in and out as if in a dream, wandering empty aisles and pushing imagined carts, checking out their bounty, self-scanning.
May you please render us saved.
And the farmers in Portland and Studio City and Brooklyn, with their small hands and meager yields, their rooftop stalks, they have been taken and put up in cages.
Make them free.

In Front Of The Black Sea, Matthew Batt

On Earth As It Is

Dear God,

Ali and Sema have a daughter!

It’s raining in St. Paul but

there was a spot right in front

of the Black Sea and I wasn’t going

to go—it was already almost three

and I thought I could just plow through

till dinner but then I saw the sign—

the sign! in the window! Ali and Sema

have a daughter!

How To Become A Prayer, Giancarlo Ditrapano

On Earth As It Is

Attention is the very essence of prayer. I am the bread of only my life. I look at prayers on the page. I read them and I lay my voice on top of the prayers. I drape them with my voice and make them mine. I put on my jacket and go out into the night to meet other prayers. I was nine when the Lord wasn’t watching over my family as I had prayed he would for all of those nights. The fuck, he smashed my brother’s car into a utility pole on a south Florida interstate, killing him …

Dear God, Kirsty Logan

On Earth As It Is

I call you god but you know I don't believe. I never have. well, maybe I did once, for a few months, when I was nine. remember that little book of bible stories, the one with the mustard-yellow cover and shiny red letters? of course you know. you know everything. or you would, if I believed.

A Prayer For Lack Of You, Kyle Minor

On Earth As It Is

When I was a child I feared all the Old Testament curses—dogs, frogs, being struck down by forked lightning? Which were Old Testament curses and which were the talk of the traveling preachers in their white suits and black slickback hair? Either way, it doesn't matter. One was You and the other was You. You let anyone who wants to speak for You speak for You, so what is left for the children of the world to do but see You in the ones who speak for You? If You are You, shame on You, for sparing those who speak …

Something To Be Desired, Diana Joseph

On Earth As It Is

Maynard Prine of Reynold's Creek, West Virginia was fierce in his faith, an obedient servant of You, Lord, Your miracles, Your Mysterious Ways. It was Your mandate that my father take up the serpent, that he handle the flame. This man was not afraid.

Prayer For Amniocentesis, David Mcglynn

On Earth As It Is

We have been debating names for weeks, but now we choose one, Hayden, aware it’s a name we might have to bury. I sit on the edge of the bed and think about the vial of amniotic fluid—Katherine’s water—traveling by van to the lab in Milwaukee. I think of its soft amber color, its protective viscosity, its blizzard of DNA, the helix of Hayden’s existence a braid of Katherine’s alleles and mine.

A Statement From The Defense, Erin Mcgraw

On Earth As It Is

Because you promised to be with me even to the end of time. Because you told me to be still and know who you are. Because it was said you would lead me through the shadow of the valley of death and take away my fear, but I still have my fear. Because you promised me repose.

Prayer, Adam Robinson

On Earth As It Is

God,

nothing inspires fear in me like swallowing an apple seed. What if there are worms in the fruit that rises up from my belly? Worms freak me out.

But you know I love trees, God. Your creation is really magnificent.

Decomposing Articles Of Faith, Melissa Pritchard

On Earth As It Is

In which Sister Pritchard, Scribbler Pritchard, Goody Pritchard holds forth:

Praise God

That God both does and does not uphold our Neighborhood Watch.

That God both is and is not a projection of our innermost desires and fears.

That God is a handyman, our prayers to Him a honey-do.

For A Recently Discovered Shipwreck At The Bottom Of Lake Michigan, Matthew Olzmann

On Earth As It Is

4/2/2010

Dear Shipwreck,

Even though you’re over a century old, they say that everything inside you is still intact. Even the crew? Must be lonely. I’ll write again.

"I Never Ask", Matthew Specktor

On Earth As It Is

What do you want from me? Where should I go? What am I waiting for? What’s your name? What about the other guy? How ‘bout those people I don’t know? Help that ugly girl, the guy who cut me off in traffic, the woman with the bad breath, those Craigslisters, the people who can’t spell. Help the Un-readers, O Lord, the people with Kindles, the Amazon shoppers, those folks who send too many Tweets. Bless the Status Updaters, who bore me, the breakfast-detailers and candid photographers, the ones with the burpy babies, the dying fish, the new puppies, the Ecstatics. …

Hello, Brain, It's Me, Ray Vukcevich

On Earth As It Is

Hello, 90% of my brain which is totally, or at least mostly, inaccessible to consciousness, this is the part of us that thinks of itself as “Ray Vukcevich” although sometimes we suspect that part is really “Henry.” Would people have called him “Hank” if things had developed a little differently? What I’m wondering about today is Time. It's a subject that seems so simple at first but is not at all simple and probably has a lot to do with Everything. I’d like to run it by you. I hope you will have ideas. I hope you will tell me …