Is Scientific Evidence Modern-Day Scripture?

Last updated on: March 10, 2012 at 6:36 am By Michael Dowd

The following is cross-posted from my HuffPost blog (where it has received 200+ comments). It is also posted on Connie‘s and my Metanexus blog, here. We are in the early stages of what I think historians will one day call religion’s Evidential Reformation. Increasingly, most of us (the devout included) relate to scientific, historic and cross-cultural evidence as more authoritative than the dictates of an all-male ecclesiastical body or a literalist reading of Scripture. A good example of this is a... Read more

The Dangerous Pursuit of Pastoral Fame

Last updated on: March 2, 2012 at 6:38 pm By Bob Hyatt

As my chiropractor was working me over yesterday, she was asking about the reading I’m currently doing for a degree I’m working on. After I rattled off the titles and subjects of a number of leadership books, she said, “Wow, what are you going to do when you are finished with school—rule the world?” “Actually, I’m moving in the opposite direction,” I said. And I am trying to mean that. Genuinely. Over the last few years, I’ve thought long and... Read more

The Prayers of Lent

Last updated on: March 1, 2012 at 11:29 am By Phyllis Tickle

PATHEOS – March 2012 Just a few days before Lent began this year and in anticipation of it, Doug Pagitt–who somehow always manages to pastor us all, thank God– set a date for the two of us to engage in a Skyped conversation about Lent. But not about Lent in general, he said. Rather, he wanted us to talk about Lent from my perspective as a liturgical Christian. Since almost nobody ever asks me to speak as a liturgical, I... Read more

Moving Church Past Contracts

Last updated on: February 29, 2012 at 9:53 am By Danielle Shroyer

Many of you have likely read Seth Godin’s most recent manifesto, “Stop Stealing Dreams” where he tackles the question of education in his typical blog-thought style. The whole 33,000 words are free for download if you want to give it a read. In section 26, Godin talks about the contract of adhesion. Here’s how he describes it: Friedrich Kessler, writing in 1943 in the Columbia Law Review, articulated a new kind of contract, one for the industrial age. Rather than being... Read more

Phantom Deity Disorder

Last updated on: February 28, 2012 at 3:51 pm By John Musick

The other day while having dinner with friends I subconsciously reached my hand toward the attractive woman seated next to me. It was an effort to steal a private moment of affection with my wife by a brief grasp of her hand. Everything was perfect except for the fact that the woman sitting next to me was not my wife nor was she of any romantic interest at all. To her, my flaccid and foreign gesture would have seemed like... Read more

Conversation with John Shelby Spong on Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World

Last updated on: February 28, 2012 at 10:18 am By Doug Pagitt

Here is my conversation with Bishop John Shelby Spong on his book “Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World” from my Radio Show. In the conversation I ask John why people are not hearing from him the point he is trying to make, that the Bible is important to our lives and we should fully engage with it, and rather they hear him and others saying they want to get rid of the Bible? In the second video I ask... Read more

Wisdom From Kierkegaard

Last updated on: February 27, 2012 at 7:48 am By Nick Fox

This Quote by Kierkegaard is rocking my world the last few weeks. The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we as Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if... Read more

Aids, homosexuality…confronting the terminal illness of judgement

Last updated on: February 26, 2012 at 12:36 pm By Ron Cole

Last night, working in the emergency department we had a woman maybe in her seventy’s come in with her forty year old son. To look at him you would never guess he was forty. He looked older than his mother, he was thin, gaunt and literally wasting away. He didn’t have to say a word, you could see pain, suffering, shame and guilt written all over him. He was in the end stages of AIDS. Ravaged by the disease, he was... Read more

A Tapestry of Belief and Experience

Last updated on: February 25, 2012 at 1:35 pm By Bruce Epperly

Diana Butler Bass’ Christianity after Religion explores the tension between spirituality and religion, and experience andbelief. Her work is more descriptivethan constructive, but it sets the agenda for Christians who wish to addresstwenty-first century spiritual challenges and not the issues of a bygone era. Bass notes that belief has oftenbeen a deterrent to taking Christianity seriously among the self-described “nones”and “spiritual but not religious.” She reflects on her experience of a baccalaureate sermon that focused on Christ as imperial and... Read more

Evangelical 2.0: The Deception of Mark Driscoll’s Acts 29 Network

Last updated on: February 24, 2012 at 2:35 pm By Christian Piatt

I’ve written quite a bit about churches like Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill and the concerns I have about a lack of accountability, given that they’re not part of a denomination or other larger body of oversight. Churches led my ministers like Driscoll and John Piper seem to be independent, yet pressing a surprisingly consistent agenda in many ways, when you consider they’re not connected. Well, maybe a little bit connected, it turns out. I have to give evangelicals due credit... Read more