Experimental Theology

Today another film from my 2019 conversation with Travis Reed for The Work of the People.
Again, you can preview the first two minutes of the film. The Work of the People is supported by a subscription-based model, so if you'd like to access the whole film, along with every other film at the site, it's only $7 a month for a personal subscription...

"when he dies he will carry nothing away"
Psalm 49 preaches about the vanity and futility and wealth, and in making this assessment it sounds a lot like Ecclesiastes. For example:
For he sees that even the wise die;

"One is not commanded to be on the winning side, but to be in the right place when the Lord returns."
This is a quote from Daniel Berrigan, priest, poet, author, and activist. The quote struck me because it concisely encapsulates my political vision. As regular readers know, I agree with Tolkien that history is "a long defeat." I'm a political pessimist...

Following upon the last two posts, a final point I want to make in this series concerns how the problem of evil plays out in soft versus hard magical worlds.
A great deal of intellectual effort is spent on the theological project we call "theodicy," attempts to explain why a good and all-powerful God allows evil, pain, and suffering in the world. And I think it's safe to say that, in the end, all these efforts...