About Me

I have loved reading a good story since I was a small child.  A couple of Hardy Boys books were always part of my birthday and Christmas presents before moving on to The Swiss Family Robinson, Huckleberry Finn, and The Iliad.  (Seriously, what sixth grader reads The Iliad?)  I’m sure it was no surprise to anyone that I majored in English when I was at Baylor University.

I have also been fascinated by the Bible.  My parents are both Mississippi Baptists, and I was born into a church-going, Sunday School-attending family.  I was taught what the Bible said before I could read it for myself.  When I could read it for myself, I found that it said what I was told it said.  Of course, I wasn’t sophisticated enough at the time to see that the former led to the latter.

It was in the doctoral program at seminary that my literary studies and biblical studies came together.   During that time I took a semester of doctoral-level work in Comparative Literature at the University of Indiana and was introduced to the works of Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, E. D. Hirsch, and M. M. Bakhtin, among others.  Since the world of story and narrative had always been a part of my life, I naturally took this approach to reading the Bible.  It has opened up a  new world to me.

Of course, that meant leaving behind some of the old world.  I began to notice that some of what I was always taught that the Bible said, it doesn’t actually talk about a lot.  I guess I had always noticed these anomalies, but I just didn’t quite know what to do with them, much like Neo at the beginning of The Matrix.

Not anymore.  Things make better sense to me; the Bible makes better sense to me.  And it is my joy to share my findings with others, whether through my preaching, my teaching, or my writing.  I’m still working things out, and welcome any additional insights and well as corrections anyone, Christian or non-Christian, can provide me.  The journey motif is well-used these days, maybe even a bit cliche, but it is apropos here.  I’m on a journey of discovery, and I welcome any who want to join me along the way.