Kristin Swenson

Kristin Swenson is associate professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is author of Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time (Harper).

Articles by Kristin Swenson

Blogging Toward Sunday

The wrong way to protest

Sep 27, 2010 by Kristin Swenson

It's easy—from the comfort of my desk, where I’m healthy, well fed and securely employed—to experience a sense of "enough," as I wrote last week. It’s easy to champion compassion, justice and peace (what's not to like?), even when it puts me at odds with a few biblical texts.

Blogging Toward Sunday

The gift of enough

1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31

Sep 20, 2010 by Kristin Swenson

Before my Great Aunt Esther died, she lived in downtown Minneapolis in poverty. Oddly, this is not embarrassing to my proper, upper-middle-class, Christian family. Esther simply continued to live as she had when her husband, my grandmother's brother Ludwig, was alive.

Living by the Word

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Lamentations 1:1–6, 3:19–26 ; Habakkuk 1:1–4; 2:1–4; Psalm 37:1–9; 2 Timothy 1:1–14; Luke 17:5–10

Sep 14, 2010 by Kristin Swenson

This week's readings include sentiments that appall me: dashing children's heads against rocks; applauding the idea of Jerusalem as a woman abandoned and abused because she had it coming; accepting the idea of slavery and the "proper place" of inferiors. I cannot go where these texts would lead me. I will not follow them.

Living by the Word

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Jeremiah 32:1–3a, 6–15; Amos 6:1a, 4–7; Psalm 91:1–6, 14–16; 1 Timothy 6:6–19; Luke 16:19–31

Sep 10, 2010 by Kristin Swenson

Security and risk are nothing new. Today's biblical texts deal not with stocks and bonds exactly, but with living in the real circumstances of a difficult and uncertain world while also accepting the possibility of good, of help and support, comfort and security.

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