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Using the Seven Deadly Sins as a template, two college professors explore the impulses which lay at the heart of academic plagiarism.

Unlike Jacques Derrida, who was haunted by specters of Karl Marx, I am haunted by specters of JKA Smith. My first glimpse of Smith’s ghostly presence came in 2005, when an anonymous reader for my soon-to-be published book on postmodernism berated me for never mentioning The Fall of Interpretation. As I checked Smith’s text out […]

  A friend recently asked me, “What is faith and what belief?” Words of this sort have so many meanings that to think about them is like looking at a dozen unfocused images projected on top of each other in a promiscuous jumble.  In practice, to compare “faith” with “belief” means choosing one of each […]

I love it that each of my interlocutors has homed in on quite different themes and issues in The Fall of Interpretation.  And as you’ll have guessed, it’s a special treat to engage Neal, one of my star students about whom I regularly brag, taking way more credit than I deserve.  (We also both share […]

In his most recent book, N. T. Wright captures the integration of politics and theology in the Gospels, but his framing of the argument proves problematic on the question of Christianity’s creedal tradition.

I first read The Fall of Interpretation (FoI) in the Fall of 2002. I had learned shortly before the semester had begun that the Philosophy of Language class I had signed up for was going to be taught by a new prof, some young guy who looked like he belonged in an Old Navy catalogue […]

Over the past several days, I have seen at least two dozen friends and acquaintances on Facebook and Twitter post a link to this web comic from The Oatmeal entitled “How To Suck at Your Religion.” This comic, written by Oatmeal founder Matthew Inman, was re-posted several times by friends of mine who are atheists and agnostics […]

It’s really tricky to find a solid rhyme for the word ‘eunuch’. The word ‘futtock’ may be my favorite. Anyway. While I was a T.A. for Will Willimon at Duke, I recall him saying something to the effect that until the church starts saying ‘no’ to heterosexual marriages it will not make any sense for […]

I’m profoundly grateful to these scholars for taking time to carefully, critically, and charitably engage the second edition of The Fall of Interpretation—and in the summer, of all things!  This kind of constructive engagement is a real gift to an author, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to continue the conversation by replying to […]