Dr. Mark Banas thinks so. Take a look at his video account of Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry: Envisioning a Future for the Philosophy of Religion. Mark has produced a bunch of good videos and I encourage you to subscribe to keep track of his adventures in communicating religion, and sometimes philosophy, through “Ten on Religion.” See his channel here.

The Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought just wrapped up its 2021 meeting. They asked me to present my intellectual autobiography, which I was honored to do. It was strange to be forced to slow down and think about my intellectual history. And it was daunting to be listened to by colleagues on such a topic.

I might have spent more time on ideas but I didn’t for two reasons. On the one hand, later in 2021, a book of essays about my ideas is supposed to appear, and my response essay in that volume covers that territory. On the other hand, the intellectual autobiography was a pandemic-affected Zoom affair, scheduled after a long day of lectures, so I wanted to keep it light. I focused on life stories.

Since there is no way to publish such a thing, I’m posting it here as an illustrated pdf.

20210605-Intellectual-Autobiography-for-IARPT

After a lifetime of writing non-fiction, my first novel will be published by Wildhouse Fiction – in Fall 2023. At present, I’m collecting reviews from advance readers so let me know if you’d like to help out with a review and I’ll send you an advance copy.

It wasn’t easy to make the transition to the bewitching world of storytelling, let me tell you. But there is something incredibly satisfying about writing a moving story.

Called The Winding Way Home, here’s a precis.

When disaster strikes Jesse and Alexandra’s family, their lives shatter. Jesse’s grief triggers a full-blown psychiatric crisis, which spurs a most unusual spiritual quest in an attempt to find a way to feel at home in what suddenly seems like a cruel world. In the midst of her own trauma, Alexandra is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, further pitching the family into desperation. Jesse’s weekly breakfast with two of his children, along with Alexandra’s determined efforts to fight the erasure of her memories, holds the family together despite the agonizing uncertainty surrounding all of them. Jesse and Alexandra find themselves drawn into the horrifying world of missing and abducted children and the minds of their captors, and eventually adopt an abduction survivor named Maddy and her young children. Together, they forge a new and expanded family, and create a home where everyone can heal. This is a family saga, a love story, an account of child abduction and its exacting aftermath, a tale of hard-won hope, and a profound exploration of the spiritual potential of ordinary life in the face of the unthinkable.

Here are comments from advance readers (see the website for more).

As a one-time English professor, having absorbed countless works of fiction, I have never read a novel more devastating nor more beautiful.

— Patricia Browne, Former Professor of English, St. Catherine’s University, St. Paul, Minnesota

Disturbing, inspiring, daring, heartwarming, this is a novel of family, of terrible events, of deep and patient love (the erotic is not neglected), and of ultimate experiences and mysteries. The prose is engaging, the storytelling deft and resourceful, the vision of life opening into a larger vision of Being Itself.

— Brian Jorgensen, Professor Emeritus, Department of English, Boston University

The Winding Way Home is a story about constructing meaning after unspeakable evil renders reality absurd, about the power of love to transfigure traumas that are beyond the reach of healing, and, ultimately, about the immense beauty, unspeakable wonder, and infinite spiritual vitality of everyday life. Providing a searing vision of the depth dimension of human life shorn of all supernatural obfuscations, it’s a must read, especially for the spiritual but not religious crowd.

— David Rohr, Center for Mind and Culture, Boston

Spirit Tech is out!

Listen to an excerpt from the audiobook here.

Back in the day, I was deeply affected by a dynamic preacher and gifted pastor, the late Rev. Samuel Johnson Lindamood, Jr., often affectionately referred to as “Big Sam.” His ministry in Arizona and California churches nurtured and transformed generations of people.

Big Sam wrote a series of meditations in the late 1980s for those who needed a less conventional, more practical approach to Lenten reflection. Here’s what he said about it: In a culture consumed with consuming, it seems that more is never enough. The eyes search for new and exciting sights, the appetite longs for more and varied tastes…Lent offers a time to overcome our consumerism, to give up something as a discipline—not a popular idea, but an important one. Lent offers a time also of taking something on, some new and different commitment, perhaps. And, finally, Lent offers a time of meditation and reflection. This book is for meditation and reflection during the forty days of Lent, once per day. Perhaps someone ‘taking it on’ will be better able ‘to give up something’ or deepen their commitment.

I originally edited and distributed an unillustrated version of these reflections to Big Sam’s many friends and followers. But I’ve always been convinced that this way of engaging the Lenten season had a much wider potential audience—especially for those who wanted to take Lent seriously, but found existing resources alienating or irrelevant.

Beauty in the Ordinary is a thoughtfully illustrated version of Big Sam’s meditations. It’s my attempt to honor “Big Sam” as the 25th anniversary of his death approaches. Daily meditations blended with Bible passages and impactful readings from some of his favorite books—from The Velveteen Rabbit to The Confessions of Saint Augustine—will inspire you to engage Lent in a different way this year. And you can use the book any other time, too.

Lent presents an opportunity to take stock of one’s life. It’s a time of reflection and restructuring. Beauty in the Ordinary holds tremendous value for the 2021 season of Lent… and well beyond. The book’s stunning photography makes it perfect to rest on your coffee table after you’ve finished reading it.

See more at BeautyInTheOrdinaryBook.com.

Praise for Beauty in the Ordinary

Beauty in the Ordinary is a gift you can give to others or yourself. If you invest even a few minutes to read a selection and savor the beauty of the photography, you will find your soul renewed, your eyes opened, and your heart enlarged. You’ll catch your breath, and the beauty you experience in the book will help you find more beauty around and within you. This book is a treasure: profound, delightful, insightful.

— Brian D. McLaren, author of Faith After Doubt

For many Lent is the most depressing season of the church year. It seems mostly to consist of litanies of penitence and the sacrifice of chocolate, coffee, cheese, or, some other innocent pleasure. In this wonderful collection of Lenten reflections, the late Rev. Samuel Johnson Lindamood calls the reader from such misery to the possibility of self-knowledge, compassion, love and hope. Lent is not here a dreary series of chest beatings and cries of mea culpa, but an opportunity to learn to love oneself, one’s God, and God’s world. Through citations of spiritual writers, secular saints, and Holy Scriptures Lindamood locates our struggle to be human in humanity’s common quest for wholeness. Sit with these reflections, your pen and your journal, and be reborn.

— John E. Phelan, Jr., Emeritus President and Dean, North Park Theological Seminary

Beauty in the Ordinary opens doors into the colorful, complicated textures of human life – its sorrows, hardships, joys, and challenges. Light shines through these open doors to illumine beauty and to invite readers into deep thinking and joyful musing.

— Rev. Dr. Mary Elizabeth Moore, Emeritus Professor and School of Theology Dean, Boston University

The reader of this creative and engaging collection will find a wealth of beauty, both visual and verbal, in its pages. It is the kind of material that entices and keeps the reader involved, on a daily basis—a great gift, particularly in our present moment.”

— Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill Dean, Marsh Chapel Professor, New Testament and Pastoral Theology, Boston University

Beauty in the Ordinary feels just like I remember Sam himself: loving, warm, beautiful, unconventional, thought-provoking, and steady as a rock.

— Gay Lane, Principal, Douglas C. Lane & Associates, New York, NY

I’ve never read anything quite like this book. Refreshingly contemporary yet rich in timeless wisdom, Beauty in the Ordinary addresses life’s most profound themes with Sam Lindamood’s characteristic wit, delightful sense of humor, childlike curiosity, and humility. Highly recommended for anyone seeking a fresh perspective on the spiritual life.

— Dr. Dave Rohr, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Mind and Culture, Boston, MA

A decade ago, Religion, Brain & Behavior (RBB) was still a dream in the minds of its founding editors, neuroscientist Patrick McNamara, anthropologist Richard Sosis, and philosopher of religion Wesley J. Wildman. No journal dedicated to the cognitive, evolutionary, and neurological study of religion existed at the time, and the editorial team had considerable difficulty finding a publisher who would buy into the idea.[1] Eventually, Taylor and Francis agreed to publish RBB, and the first issue came out in April 2011, adorned then as today with William Blake’s “Web of Religion,” a painting that captures “the restless, promethean nature of religion,” in the words of RBB’s first editorial.[2] Today, out of 594 religious studies journals, RBB has the second highest CiteScore, a metric that ranks journals by the number of citations articles receive on average each year. With my curiosity piqued by this dramatic ascendancy, I asked to interview the current editors—Sosis, Wildman, philosopher and sociologist Joseph Bulbulia, and neuroscientist Uffe Schjoedt—about RBB and the scientific study of religion more generally.

Continue reading →

Taylor Thomas is a PhD student in theology, ethics, and philosophy at Boston University School of Theology and a Lindamood Fellow at the Center for Mind and Culture. Below is Dave Rohr’s interview with Taylor regarding her recent publication of “Hope in Imperfection: Toward a Naturalized Theology of Grace” in the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy.

Dave Rohr:

So my first question is, were you raised religious? And, if so, how did you come to be embrace philosophical naturalism?

Taylor Thomas:

I was raised Southern Baptist, as deeply Southern Baptist as you can get, with a little bit of Pentecostal and nondenominational holiness tossed in there every other Sunday. And then when I got to college, I did the normal take a few philosophy and religion courses and question everything, you know, God is dead, etc. And when I got to Boston University, I met up with Wesley Wildman and he introduced me to religious naturalism and I kinda felt at home there. Continue reading →

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection portrays nature as red in tooth and claw, with fierce competition between and within species determining that only the fittest survive and reproduce. Or does it? Although the preceding interpretation predominated late into the twentieth century, in recent decades biologists have begun to appreciate that cooperation is how many species remain competitive and that mutualism between species is as successful an evolutionary strategy as parasitism.

Unlike parasitism where an organism like a tick or tapeworm exploits another organism, mutualism refers to an interspecies relationship that benefits both species. For example, almost half of land plants depend upon fungi to supply their roots with water and minerals, the fungi in turn receiving sugars from the plant’s roots. Many bird species share mutualistic relations with large animals like water buffalo and crocodiles, making easy meals from ticks and other parasites that prey upon the larger animals. Fruiting plants and the animals who consume their fruit also relate mutualistically: the animals receive sugar-rich nutrition while the plants’ seeds are carried far and wide, increasing their chances of reproducing.

In a new article in Theology and Science Stephen Scaringe and Wesley Wildman argue that the recent recognition of widespread mutualism and symbiosis between biological species is a harbinger of a deeper realization with profound theological significance: “at a fundamental level, there are no separate life forms … living organisms only come into existence contingent or dependent on other species and organisms, and every living entity is perpetually dependent for its continued existence on other life forms, which in turn only exist contingently on other life forms.” Recognition of our inextricable interconnectedness with other organisms can be destabilizing, upsetting our clear-cut personal and collective identities. Destabilizing or not, Scaringe and Wildman predict that the continued growth of biological and ecological understanding will soon render this conclusion inescapable.

Anticipating the widespread acceptance of the conception of life as mutually constituted and contingently existent, Scaringe and Wildman reflect on the theological implications of this dawning awareness. In particular, they suggest that this conception of life demands a thorough rethinking of the idea of free will, problematizes conceptions of salvation that depend upon a clear distinction between persons and their bodies, and challenges conceptions of humanity as exercising divinely given dominion over the rest of nature. If Scaringe and Wildman are correct that the idea of life as mutually constituted is destined to prevail, we can hope that this idea will lead, not only to a more profoundly relational metaphysics, but also to a humbler, more caring way of relating to the organisms and ecosystems that sustain all human persons, societies, and civilizations.

For those of you are tracking the transreligious theology movement, a new milestone has been reached with the publication of Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative (New York: Routledge, 2019). Jerry Martin, the hero of this fledgling movement, edited the volume, incorporating inspirational essays from many of the movement’s leading lights.

Here’s what the Routledge site has to say about the book:

“Thinking about ultimate reality is becoming increasingly transreligious. This transreligious turn follows inevitably from the discovery of divine truths in multiple traditions. Global communications bring the full range of religious ideas and practices to anyone with access to the internet. Moreover, the growth of the “nones” and those who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” creates a pressing need for theological thinking not bound by prescribed doctrines and fixed rituals. This book responds to this vital need.

“The chapters in this volume each examine the claim that if the aim of theology is to know and articulate all we can about the divine reality, and if revelations, enlightenments, and insights into that reality are not limited to a single tradition, then what is called for is a theology without confessional restrictions. In other words, a Theology Without Walls. To ground the project in examples, the volume provides emerging models of transreligious inquiry. It also includes sympathetic critics who raise valid concerns that such a theology must face.

“This is a book that will be of urgent interest to theologians, religious studies scholars, and philosophers of religion. It will be especially suitable for those interested in comparative theology, inter-religious and interfaith understanding, new trends in constructive theology, normative religious studies, and global philosophy of religion.”

The table of contents is in the book’s promotional flyer.