Links & Interviews
Here are some of my favorite links that reveal some of my influences and interests.
Biblical Archaeology Society Dead Sea Scrolls Page
The Biblical Archaeological Society has devoted a special page of their Website to the Dead Sea Scrolls in honor of the sixtieth anniversary of their discovery. See especially the free e-book by Hershel Shanks.
John Howard Yoder is one of my most important influences. He is why I consider myself an Anabaptist, even though I do not hail from a historical peace church, such as the Amish, Mennonites, etc. Yoder died in 1997, but Notre Dame still maintains his homepage at his family’s insistence so others may continue in his work. See specially the extensive PDF collection of his unpublished writings.
The historical peace churches have too often resorted to a “retreat to the wilderness” form of pacifism, where one’s piety is judged by the degree of separation from the world. ECAPC is doing a fine job of following John Howard Yoder’s revolutionary mandate that Jesus’s nonviolent teachings should be taught to the Church at large.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
AU is an advocacy organization dedicated to furthering strict separation of church and state. Long before it became a political principle embodied in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the separation of church and state was a religious principle that early Anabaptists defended with their very lives because they knew the politicization of Christianity has always distorted Jesus’s nonviolent teachings. Note that AU’s national director, Barry Lynn, is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.
I am currently in the process of forming a Mississippi chapter of AU. Please contact me if you would like more information.
The administrator of this Website is an old friend of mine, however we often differ on church reform issues. From time to time, I like to drop in on this site to keep abreast of issues that conservative Christians find most threatening.
Some readers will find postmodern influences in my work, especially my next book Truth Is Ours? But instead of flatly identifying myself as a postmodernist, I prefer to think that I have followed John Howard Yoder’s advice and made a “tactical ally” of postmodernism. Which is to say, I find postmodern methods indispensable in deconstructing many of orthodoxy’s false and coercive claims to certainty, but I hope to avoid slipping into relativistic nihilism. Caputo is one of the few Christian theologians writing today able to effectively harness Derrida and other key postmodern thinkers, even tying them into older Christian thinkers like Kierkegaard and Eckhart. See especially Caputo’s obituary of Derrida.
This is one of the most popular spiritual Websites on the Internet, and it offers robust interfaith dialogues on a wide range of contemporary topics.
The magazine Christianity Today was originally founded by Billy Graham and is now one of the leading evangelical Christian publications in the world. This Website offers free access to all articles found in the traditional print versions of Christianity Today and its twelve sister publication, plus two search engines to thousands of other Christian Websites.
The Ordinary Radicals documentary
I saw this documentary at the Crossroads film festival in Jackson, Mississippi and met and talked with some of the Ordinary Radicals afterwards. Their message of evangelism, pacifism, social justice and Kingdom on earth is the real thing. I think this movement is one of the most exciting developments in Christianity in a very long time.
Radio Interviews
April 2008
FRI, APR 11, 2008 (7-9PM CST) - Radio Interview at FRI, APR 11, 2008 Or listen to interview here. (9.6MB MP3)
October 2008
SAT, OCT 18, 2008 - Radio Interview at SAT, OCT 18, 2008. The interview will be available all weekend long and then available for download.
November 2008
SUN, NOV 23, 2008 - Radio Interview at SUN, NOV 23, 2008
8-9:30pm ET. Listen to the interview. (MP3, 10.91MB)
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