Source IN police shooting cases like that of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, grand jurors are typically asked to focus on one question: At the moment the officer fired, did he have reason to believe the person he shot posed a grave and imminent threat? This question fails to consider whether alternatives to deadly force were available and how race might have affected the officer’s perception of the threat. Under the prevailing legal standard, those questions aren’t relevant. Until we... Read more

One common argument brought up to cast doubt on the theory of evolution is the absence or paucity of intermediate or transitional forms. Much is made of the fact that there is no evidence for “macroevolution” – one kind becoming another completely different kind. But transitional forms … what does this mean?  Presumably animals with traits characteristic of two different modern species – a crocoduck or a kangaroach.  But wait, we do have such creatures in the platypus, the coqui,... Read more

I am honored that Larry Hurtado, well-known NT scholar and who blogs here, has offered to the Jesus Creed blog this review of Robert Gundry’s new book on Peter. Along with Helen Bond, Hurtado recently edited a book on Peter, so he’s particularly ready to examine Gundry’s thesis. Image In his most recent book, seasoned and respected New Testament scholar, Robert H. Gundry, presents the bold thesis that the Gospel of Matthew presents the Apostle Peter as an apostate who... Read more

Todd C. Frankel: LOS GATOS, CALIF. — It’s Sunday, which means house-hunting for Barry and Katie Templin. They have been on the prowl for months and saving for years, looking for a place with reasonable commutes to their technology jobs and good public schools for their two young children. They hope that is not too much to ask, even in Silicon Valley, the nation’s most expensive housing market. They pull their decade-old SUV up to a house that needs to be... Read more

What do you think? NBC: Evangelist Franklin Graham is launching a nationwide effort to urge Christians to get out and vote in 2016, but the son of the legendary Billy Graham isn’t backing any one candidate or party, insisting his aim is to launch a “campaign for God.” In an exclusive interview with NBC News in Des Moines, Iowa on the opening day of his Decision America tour, Graham said his only goal is to get millions of Americans who... Read more

High definition salvation means the “homogenous unit principle,” so characteristic of some megachurches, has got to give way to the HD Principle: salvation is for all and each church is to present that all-are-one-in-Christ to the community. So says Derwin Gray in The High Definition Leader: Building Multiethnic Churches in a Multiethnic World. Derwin caught this vision in a vision inspired by the Bible: Before Transformation Church ever existed, she existed in my heart. I could picture a congregation of white... Read more

Source How can any photographer take an image that will never be forgotten? For starters, quit taking nature photos, whether it’s a sunset, mountain range, lake or ocean. Those images are among the least distinctive, according to an MIT algorithm trained to recognize memorable photographs nearly as well as humans. Amateur photographers with dreams of taking memorable images shouldn’t trek to national parks and obsess over the best composition and shutter speed. Staying at home with a goofy friend — or venturing to a... Read more

From Catholic News Agency, who just might have a card up their sleeve, but at least it’s interesting to see KGB folks say these things. In the first edition of Gutierrez’s famous book there was a stronger connection to Marxism though as his career moved on there was less emphasis. Was the Theology of Liberation a movement somehow “created” by Sakharovsky’s part of the KGB, or it was an existing movement that was exacerbated by the USSR? The movement was... Read more