When I started sending out book proposals over a year ago for God and Harry at Yale, part of me never believed that I was up to the task of writing a book. Books are long. They have chapters and indexes and titles. They take an awful lot of time and you have to fill up an awful lot of pages, and as I stared at the blank computer screen in front of me, I just didn’t think it would happen.
Until I was about three-quarters of the way through the draft, a part of me was sur that God and Harry at Yale would never be a reality. I had so much evidence to back my claim up: I’d never written a book before; I only had ten weeks to complete a draft; I didn’t really know what I was doing because I’d never written a book before (ooh, did I say that already?). Yet sentence by sentence and page by page, I created one, because despite everything that made me think writing a book was too lofty a goal, I trusted a gut instinct, a belief that I could complete it.
Though this is a story about writing and not about God, it’s still a story about faith. People who possess faith in God, or for that matter anything else, may or may not have compelling evidence to support that belief (see last week’s post), but they believe nonetheless. For some people, that faith feels solid or feels like a given while for others, it becomes a journey full of questioning and doubt. [click to continue…]
So other classes may be suspended for Labor Day, but not ours! Today we’re going to discuss revelation. Not the Book of but how God is revealed to humans. (As an aside, one of my professors once told me to remember that the biblical book is the Book of Revelation, not Revelations. Now every time I hear someone say Revelations, I think, “Oh no!” and now you will too!)
Anyway, when Christians talk about revelation (not the Book of) they’re talking about how they receive knowledge about God that is authoritative. We all know how hard it is to get truthful knowledge about other things—enter Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s marriage—so imagine how much harder it is to evaluate what’s true when it comes to an ineffable, abstract, possibly-non-existent being! That’s why Christians have said there are several reliable places in which God is revealed. These vary slightly from denomination to denomination, but I am going to talk about four common ones here: Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience. Together they are known as the Methodist Quadrilateral, and they are commonly accepted sources in many traditions. [click to continue…]
Danielle Tumminio’s guest-posting continues! Danielle is a contributor to Hog’s Head Conversations: Essays on Harry Potter. Her book, God and Harry at Yale will be available from Zossima Press later this year.
Hello, Harry Potter enthusiasts! Before we talk about evil (dum dum dum), I’m going to engage in the deadly sin of pride (can you name the other 6?) and say that God and Harry at Yale is now in to Zossima Press! Woohoo!
Okay, pride indulged. Now onto evil. Evil is a big thorn in the theologian’s side because it + God’s existence = logically impossible. Let me explain: Christians believe that God is all-knowing (omniscient), all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-good (omnibenevolent). If God is all these things, then evil shouldn’t exist: if God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then God should know evil is going to occur and then take steps to stop it. If God is all-good, then God would want to.
And yet, evil exists.
Hmm…..
So what’s a theologian to do? [click to continue…]
Greetings Harry Potter enthusiasts! Whether you used the Knight Bus, floo powder, or, um, your keyboard, I’m so glad that you found your way to my guest blogging at the Hog’s Head. I’m going to be hanging with you all for a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to chatting about one of my favorite topics: the relationship between Christianity and the Harry Potter books. But before we get to that, I thought I’d start by telling you a little bit about myself.
For the past two years, I’ve been teaching a seminar at Yale University on Christian theology and Harry Potter. It’s a full semester course that provides an introduction to key topics in Christianity and asks students to analyze how those ideas are present (or not) in the series. The class has been a huge hit on campus—over 70 students have signed up each term, even though the class is capped at 18, and going through their applications is both a challenge and great fun. I’m pretty sure no other instructor on campus gets to hear about how their potential students founded Quidditch Clubs in their high schools or read Prisoner of Azkaban over and over on rainy days in elementary school. I feel like the luckiest teacher in the world because of that: I know my students are passionate about the class, and that makes me passionate too. [click to continue…]
Joivre on 
Red Rocker on 
Tom on 
Arabella Figg on 
Travis Prinzi on 
Loading ...
