With the prospect of at least a week without meetings, e-mails or deadlines, I put aside a book that I wanted to read, but didn’t find the time for. That was somewhere in January. And then I stumbled upon another book that I definitely needed to go through. And oh, that one too! And so […]
Lecture Six: Does Belief Matter? Belief, Hope, and Responsibility
This year’s Gifford Lectures by prof. Agustin Fuentes offer an exciting new perspective on human evolution, centered on human niche construction. These lectures inspired me to revisit my doctoral research on a practical cooperation between theology and evolutionary studies of religion, and reinforced my conviction that looking at (religious) education from a niche construction perspective […]
Theology and Technology: the adventus approach
Medium has an interview with Michael Burdett on theology and technology. Burdett explains some of the theological implications of technology and why it is important to have a dialogue with transhumanism. What I like the most about the interview, is the idea of an adventus approach towards technology. The following quote will clarify this a […]
Theology and Evolutionary Studies of Religion: Public Defense of my Dissertation
On Tuesday, November 7th, I successfully defended my dissertation on the relevance of evolutionary studies of religion for theology. With that, a period of fifteen years came to a close, a period in which I studied theology, for the better part in combination with a full-time job as a teacher. So the defense was a […]
On Meeting God in Nature
How can religious traditions help us to encounter God – or, rather, to recognize that we encounter God – in our lives? A crucifix in Tirol triggered me to reflect on that. Nature as a magnificent whole shows traces of your Creator, but if you want to see Him at His greatest, you need to […]
Wim Drees on Science-Inspired Naturalistic Theism
I’ve just finished reading an article by Wim Drees, published (free acces) in Theology and Science, and was really inspired by it. That has of course to do with my own unfinished search for a theological position, in which I hesitate to identify my stance completely with religious naturalism. Drees explains in his article how […]
Big History as a Religious Ritual
Today, I stumbled upon a fascinating example of science turning into religion, or, to be more precise, of people using science to create religious rituals. It all began when I was asked to offer a short meditation at the beginning of next meeting at work. My current employer is the Catholic education network in Flanders, […]
A Matter of Perspective
As a follow up on my earlier post about whether or not patterns in nature represent meaning, I would like to point to this picture. Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/JPMajor/status/852954423785553923 Jason Major, who tweeted this picture, explains: That bright star is actually Earth, seen between Saturn’s A and F rings by #Cassini on April 13, 2017…889.6 million miles […]
Deep History of Symbolic Thinking
Deep history, or the evolutionary history of the human species, is an interesting context for theology. Recent research offers insight in the way early humans (50 000 – 30 000 years ago) created a symbolic world in the region north of Australia. Two things strike me as important: It’s just a side note in the […]
Polar Lights and Personal Faith
The turn of the year was a bit of a rough ride. My grandmother died, my last living grandparent, and although I did not have a deep personal relation with her, it felt as if a phase in my life had ended. Unexpectedly, her death has led me into one of the most profound crises of faith […]
Weekly Gardening 