Introduction

This blog is dedicated to the study of religion, culture, and thought of Early Christianity and Judaism as it can be understood in today's world. One of the striking elements of society is the complete lack of knowledge,  from both Christians and non Christians, of the New Testament and the development of the nascent Jesus movement into an eventual world religion called "Christianity." It has never ceased to amaze me how many people feel they have the "inspired word of God" in front of them and do not read it. This apathy and ignorance not only is unhelpful to devotees of the Christian faith, it keeps "Western Society" (if such a term is helpful) from understanding many of its roots and current biases (both good and bad).

Further, when people do look at things like the New Testament and Hellenistic religions, they often are unable to converse in common parlance about key questions such as "What is religion? What is faith? What is "the world" that is often contrasted with religion? Why is one thing a "world religion" whereas another is not? What is 'Orthodoxy?' What does it mean to live in a religious community?" The inability to discuss these types of questions makes discussion about the topic largely inclusive. Not only does this type of ambiguity not allow the conversation to get beyond the insular borders of those who are used to the assumptions that are being made; it also prevents precise discussion from happening altogether. When a person is not convinced whether religion is mostly a set of personal beliefs or a communal experience about the constitution of a group, any discussion of "how this relates to one's life" is simply impossible. When the aims of a discussion are not understood, how can the details of its theology be attempted? Too often the result of this type of vague discussion is only to demonize and dismiss those who do not share one's viewpoint. As long as the terms are vague, then it is quite easy to suggest that someone else is using them incorrectly. Usually the harder discussion of how it should be viewed correctly is not done as it is a type of "given" and allows people to snipe another's viewpoint in different forms while not being open to self critique.

Some might say that for a modern study of the sociology of religion this type of approach is absolutely necessary. For someone to understand the rise of Scientology in America, for instance, it would be necessary to describe exactly what is meant by "Scientology" - the theory of L. Ron Hubbard? The community that developed around him? How that community exists now and their belief practices? All of these questions almost surely would be addressed because Scientology is so poorly understood by the majority of Americans (this author would include himself in the group who does not truly understand the group). However, many will say that such conversation is moot for studying Early Christianity and the New Testament - surely in that context, such modern discussion is untenable. There seem three levels of critique - Everyone "knows" what a Christian community looks like and as such, this type of erudition is unnecessary. Further, such sociological discussions about ancient history simply are not possible as we don't have the data. Finally, Christianity is simply "different" than other religions, so any type of general discussion about it in context would make little sense. I have always found this argument fundamentally flawed. First, I do not think it is by any stretch of the imagination obvious what a Christian community in the first century looked like just because there are 21st century groups that hold the same name. Further, that sociological data is not available is a fact of life when studying ancient religion; however, the fact that a discussion is challenging is not a good argument for not having it. It is possible to reconstruct something that gives a bit of the social world, that is surely better to use as a base than nothing at all. Finally, the idea that Christianity is somehow so different from other religions that it is somehow exempt from the category is simply naive. When the Jesus movement begins, it does not imagine itself as a fundamentally different phenomenon, it did not even imagine itself as a new world religion. When Paul writes, he never says that he is joining something aggressively different, he instead argues that this is just a new phase in how God relates with humans - fully in the context of what he would have called Judaism. Therefore, the seeming exemption of Early Christianity from this careful study needs to be demolished.

This blog intends to discuss matters that are both clearly defined (I will do my very best when I discuss something like "religion" or the "world" to explain exactly what I am discussing) and are not dismissive. Further, the discussion can only go "beyond the inner group" if it is using common scholarly parlance. Therefore, I will be dialoging with major figures in the field of religion in order to attempt to have discussions that can be universal. As such, this blog will feature arguments from me, book reviews, and links to other sites that are interesting for this aim.

The scholarly study of religion has been, at times, said to be dying. There are statistics of religion departments (in addition to many of the liberal arts) being shut down or subsumed by other departments in universities. Being a young professor, I am constantly being told how few jobs are available and how many of them are going away and never coming back. Taking my inspiration from Benjamin Zander who addresses a similar situation in classical music on www.ted.com, I will work from my fundamental assumption about the scholarly study of religion. My assumption is fundamentally, that if people were to give it a chance and have a bit of education, they would see the scholarly study of religion as the pathway to understanding a new world they had never known. Essentially, I argue that everyone likes the study of religion - they just don't know it yet. It is the purpose of this website to help them know it.

As to a bit of personal information, I am a young professor at a small conservative Christian college in the Pacific Northwest. As this blog will display, I am not necessarily as conservative as some members of the college and as such, it is necessary for me to post with anonymity. I both could in theory get attacked by some members of the college for my orthodoxy (though that risk is relatively weak), I do not want any of my students to feel alienated by my views (politically, socially, or theologically) and have this website be a hindrance to my real job - being a teacher to students. Therefore, I have selected from the book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible the name "Paloni Almoni" (Ruth 4:1) which is translated often as "a certain unnamed one"- the kinsman closer in relation to Naomi who sells his right to redeem Ruth to Boaz.