What is the difference between a dead dog and a dead chemistry professor lying in the middle of the road? I recently picked up a copy of the second edition of Henry (Fritz) Schaefer’s book Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence? Fritz Schaefer was a professor of chemistry at the University of California Berkeley for 18 years (1969-1987) before moving to the University of Georgia, where he has now been for almost 30 years. I was a graduate student at... Read more

When the World Cries, New Born I sit in the dark beside the bedroom window.  The ocean hurls and roars its foamy rage at the cliff my house sits on. Rain and sleet shoot the glass. Welcome, new day. It is a December day like most December days in Kodiak, when storms upset the seas, when fog settles in like a plague and the light leaves too early, comes too late. We scurry still like spiders along our webs bent in... Read more

One of the themes in John Nugent’s excellent book The Endangered Gospel is that the church is not called to make the world the better place but to be the better place now. Does such a view promote quietism, passivism (socially) and does it mean social justice doesn’t matter? Good question. The answer is No, unequivocally. I have argued this in Kingdom Conspiracy and it all revolves around mission — the Christian mission. Nugent examines three topics: vocation, missions, and witness to the... Read more

So I’m guessing that bringing up the word Crusades is probably not the best image for most Western people when we think of Christmas. After all, the Crusades were part of a pretty dark time in Christian history, heck, it was a dark time in history. The Crusades were a time when Christians went to a physical war with Muslim soldiers to take back the Holy Land. It was a war fought presumably for the honor of God, in the name of God. But it... Read more

In addition to William Loader’s rigorous reading of texts about same-sex relations in the Bible in their Jewish context — and he does so in a strong, traditional manner (though he doesn’t think that teaching is normative) — and Megan DeFranza’s careful reading of the texts more in line with exploitative relations, while not discussing consensual, monogamous same-sex relations, Wesley Hill, a NT professor and fellow Anglican, proposes to read the texts in light of a biblical theology that he... Read more

Adam and the Genome. Genomic science indicates that humans descend not from an individual pair but from a large population. What does this mean for the basic claim of many Christians: that humans descend from Adam and Eve? Leading evangelical geneticist Dennis Venema and popular New Testament scholar Scot McKnight combine their expertise to offer informed guidance and answers to questions pertaining to evolution, genomic science, and the historical Adam. Some of the questions they explore include: Is there credible... Read more

I only clip my top three favorites of the Babylon Bee’s Books of the Year: 9.) ? — Rob Bell: “I was thinking about what I wanted my new book to convey,” Bell said thoughtfully in a short YouTube video designed to promote the May release of New York Times bestseller ?. “And it suddenly hit me—I really have no idea. I mean, about anything.” This masterful work features thousands of question marks arranged on each page in no discernible... Read more

One of the themes in John Nugent’s excellent book The Endangered Gospel is that the church is not called to make the world the better place but to be the better place now. Does such a view promote quietism, passivism (socially) and does it mean social justice doesn’t matter? Good question. The answer is No, unequivocally. I have argued this in Kingdom Conspiracy and it all revolves around mission — the Christian mission. Nugent examines three topics: vocation, missions, and witness to the powers.... Read more

Becky is the Discipleship Director at an international church in the Netherlands and blogs about emotionally healthy discipleship at medium.com/wholehearted. She conveys her five kids around town on bikes and studies theology in the middle of the night via the live streaming program at Northern Seminary. The choices of Bible teachers can build or destroy a learner’s faith. One victim of poor teaching is Reza Aslan, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus... Read more