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ReligionProf Retrospective 2025

ReligionProf Retrospective 2025

Last updated on: December 31, 2025 at 8:14 am by James F. McGrath

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ReligionProf Retrospective 2025 2025-12-31T08:14:31-05:00 James F. McGrath

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It is always good to look back on the year that is ending, especially when it has been a challenging year, and I don’t think anyone would deny that 2025 was a challenging year. It was difficult politically and socially in the United States. It was difficult for higher education in the United States. Yet there was a lot that I can be personally thankful for, and it is worth reflecting on those things, not as a way of downplaying the serious issues that are affecting us (and often others more directly than me) but as a way of not becoming bitter or depressed. To quote a film that inspired an extremely popular post on this blog, “When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything. I know you see yourself as a fighter. Well, I see myself as one too. This is how I fight…The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind. Especially when we don’t know what’s going on.”

Since my John the Baptist books came out in 2024, it was this past year that they really started to get significant attention. Let me mention that John of History, Baptist of Faith is currently at a serious discount on Amazon (for those who got a gift card for Christmas) but more than half off from Christian Book Distributors!

Early in 2025 I had the chance to talk to Alex O’Connor about John the Baptist.

Alex has remained fascinated by John the Baptist, which I think is wonderful and appropriate, and I’m grateful that he continues to mention my work. There was also an Enoch Seminar meeting in January, and I had a couple of conversations with Jacob Berman about John the Baptist.

In February I had the chance to give a talk about John the Baptist at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. In March at the Midwest Society of Biblical Literature meeting there was a wonderful review panel about my John the Baptist books. At Butler, my department’s programs (Philosophy and Religious Studies) underwent external review, which led to a number of things to pursue, including creating a student common lounge for our students.

In April I made a guest appearance in a friend’s honors course about Alan Turing. This presaged a lot more about AI being part of the remainder of the year.

There were more podcast episodes on which I was a guest, the next being TheologyU.

In May, I attended a Scriptural Reasoning Hub, and I am delighted that in May 2026 we will be hosting a Scriptural Reasoning Hub at Butler University.

In June there was another Enoch Seminar meeting exploring the idea of earliest Christianity “within Judaism.” It was so rich and rewarding. I took a lot of notes, and still plan to turn them into a blog recap of the conference. In the meantime there are videos.

In June I gave a talk about John the Baptist on solstice at the Broad Ripple Lodge, a first for me.

In July I recorded a podcast with Marc Jolicoeur. It appeared in August, as did my next appearance on History Valley.

August was also SNTS in Regensburg. I also got to sign a copy of my book at the Humanitas bookstore in Sibiu, Romania, where What Jesus Learned from Women is now out in Romanian translation.

At the start of year Fall Academic Workshop at Butler University, my colleague Ankur Gupta and I talked about AI, our open access book Real Intelligence: Teaching in the Era of Generative AI being due to appear in September. August was also a very special convocation at Butler for me, since my son has joined me as a full time colleague teaching computer science and data analytics in Butler’s new Founder’s College! In September I taught a couple of classes in The New Evangelicals’ Theology 101 program. Ankur and I also spoke to the LAS Dean’s Advisory Board about AI.

In October I was back onto John the Baptist, giving a talk for the Westar Institute. And of course, Theology Beer Camp!

While all this was happening, I was also welcoming guest speakers to campus: Maurice Broaddus to talk about his work as an author, Justin Henry speaking about televised versions of the Ramayana, and Leah Payne talking about Contemporary Christian Music. I was also glad that Doug Cowan was able to join us via Zoom even if not in person.

There were more podcasts, including talking with Alex Bernardo about Judeophobia.

And then suddenly AAR/SBL was here! That was such a wonderful experience.

John of History, Baptist of Faith was singled out as recipient of two awards, the Biblical Archaeology Society Best Book in New Testament, and a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. While such recognition is incredibly encouraging, I also value how often I hear from individual readers. If you’ve read one (or more!) of my books this year, please a review or a rating on Goodreads or Amazon if you have time, but if not, a quick email or blog comment will still mean a lot to me!

Towards the end of the year, I got to share three blog posts on Bart Ehrman’s blog about my book The A to Z of the New Testament, which will be appearing in Italian translation early in 2026.

The A-Z of the New Testament: Guest Post by James McGrath

Alphabet Soup of the New Testament: Guest Post by James F. McGrath

From A (to Z of the New Testament) to B(eyond Deconstruction): Guest Post by James F. McGrath

Now, for the top blog posts here on my own ReligionProf blog for this year. As always, there are two ways to go about this. The absolute top of the list in terms of number of visits would be (interestingly enough) the home page of the blog, meaning that a lot of people deliberately go there rather than finding their way via a link someone else shared. That is really meaningful to me, and I am grateful to everyone who reads what I write here. If I look at which posts from all time were read the most often this year, the top two were written previously. I love that the top post is from 2012, one that I wrote on the most effective squirrel baffle ever, one that comes for free with your bird seed. I got my wife a Birdfy for Christmas and we’ve been using this again, and it continues to be thoroughly effective. The next one down would be “This is How I Fight (Just Be Kind)” inspired by the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. I really love that post, and am glad that readers continue to find it meaningful. As I mentioned towards the beginning of this post, it continues to reflect my approach to engaging with the world.

Now for a list of the top 10 things written this year.

Number 10 (just beating out another post on understanding LLMs) was about whether ChatGPT can interpret speaking in tongues
Number 9 was written in response to an email from someone who talked of possibly losing their faith
Number 8 was on the real-life conclave that took place this year, choosing the successor to Pope Francis
Number 7 was “The Assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”
Number 6 was my post about what historians can say concerning the resurrection
Number 5 offered a possible explanation for Donald Trump’s desire to have the US possess Greenland and Canada
Number 4 was a post that I gave the same title as the Carr Lecture I gave at Mount Union University in October (and which I skipped mentioning above since I would be mentioning it here), “AI Isn’t God (Or Even Human)”
Number 3 was “Led by Severance to Jesus”, a post about a particularly fascinating episode of that show that is always fascinating.
Number 2 was unsurprisingly my post “The Evil of the Murder of Charlie Kirk”
Number 1 surprised me because it was written just a matter of weeks ago. My most read post written this year is “Eternal Conscious Torment and Evangelical Gatekeeping”

Which is your favorite thing I’ve written this year, or from any time that was meaningful to you this year? Please do let me know, because in so doing you’ll encourage me to write more of the same.

To all my blog readers, I wish you a very happy and healthy start to 2026! 2025 was a challenging year, and I am under no illusion that in 2026 all our problems will simply vanish. But I will continue to write about topics that are important and meaningful to me. You make my year better by reading what I write, especially when you let me know. I hope I can make your year and our world better in some small way through things that I write. Beyond Deconstruction will be out in early February, and I hope that it will be meaningful. I hope that readers of the book will get in touch and let me know what topics in it they’d like me to use this blog to say more about, or what topics that are not addressed in it they would like me to write about here.

The Most Effective Squirrel Baffle Ever (and it came free with your birdseed)!

This Is How I Fight…Just Be Kind

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