I live by questions. Challenging questions are the fuel that motivate me to keep hitting the books and stacking up the educational degrees. I did have a bout with Christian fundamentalism for a couple years in high school, but I just couldn’t let myself remain tied down by the easy answers. When I went off to Messiah College to be a Bible major, I got to revel in questions. I realized that these texts came out of a social world so far removed from my own. These texts are so relevant not only to my own personal journey but the way we think about society and culture, and yet the communities out of which the texts came would not recognize me or my society and culture. So, I got hooked on asking historical and social questions about the Bible. In Anabaptism, I found a tradition that allows me to stay dedicated in my convictions as a contemporary follower of Jesus and yet also stay true to my passion as a life-long inquirer. I am on the road towards academe, hoping to probe the depths of the social world of the New Testament and Christian origins. Laying down roots in Anabaptism, I have become passionate not just about pondering social issues, but also engaging social concerns as a servant and activist.

Along the way, I married a beautiful woman, a dietitian who is dedicated to working with social problems even more than I am. While I am currently gaining my Master of Divinity at Fuller Seminary, she is working on her Master of Public Health and simultaneously serving as a nutritionist for people with low incomes. She will be able to continue her work without the stress of schoolwork while I pursue a Ph.D. in UCLA’s Department of History for the next several years (for more on my program and why I’m going, see this post).

Oh yeah, and if you give me a dance floor, I’m going to shake things up a bit. This is from our wedding reception. My brother, Bob, jumps in towards the end:

Or, at times, you may find me singing very silly impromptu songs with my friends. This is from my friend, Matt Hauger’s wedding. Matt is on the piano, Tom Kline mostly takes lead and injures himself on the piano, Aaron Kook is behind the camera and has the lyrics with the most depth (”canticle of joy”?), and I confusedly come in after about one minute:

You can contact me at: pgmccullough (AT) ucla (DOT) edu

About kata ta biblia

This is a blog exploring the New Testament and early Christianity from the perspective of an Anabaptist seminarian, while also exposing my own curiosities about the strange journey to academia. The title is Greek and literally means “according to the books.” For me, it represents the journey to explore the meaning found within texts, particularly the New Testament. I especially hope to explore social issues that gave rise to the texts as well as the social implications of history’s (and contemporary) interpretation of those texts. I want to engage scholarly issues, but remain accessible to interested lay-folk. I am also interested in leaving my blog a little open-ended to generally focus on the interpretation of texts, be they sacred, scholarly, or popular. I belong to the Brethren in Christ denomination and hopefully that biases me just enough to make this blog interesting, but not quite so much to make me an ideologue. If you’d like to send me infuriated emails, toss them on over here. Positive and encouraging feedback, of course, would also be welcome.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built their house on rock” (Mt 7:24).