By Josh Ross, the co-author of the recently released book Bringing Heaven to Earth I’m a preacher. I’m not a youth minister. But I’m around them all the time, and I love them! We have two youth ministers on our staff, and I travel to speak at a few youth events every year, which means I plan with youth ministers, bounce ideas off of them, think big picture along with them, and often see them in their element. Youth Ministers have... Read more
Abigail Rine, at First Things: While I listened to my students lambast the article, it struck me that, on one level, they were right: marriage isn’t in danger of being redefined; the redefinition began decades ago, in the wake of the sexual revolution. Once the link between sexuality and procreation was severed in our cultural imagination, marriage morphed into an exclusive romantic bond that has only an arbitrary relationship to reproduction. It is this redefinition, arguably, that has given rise... Read more
Dahleen Glanton: An official announcement is expected Tuesday that the library and museum will be built on the South Side in partnership with the University of Chicago. But residents of the two neighborhoods being considered for the site — Washington Park and Woodlawn — have long been thinking about what such a project would mean for their communities. It is likely that wherever the library goes, the neighborhood will benefit from jobs and new investments. But community groups want to... Read more
Repainting Hell : The Argument from Desire (Jeff Cook) As Thomas Aquinas once offered five ways to know a God exists, so too I hope to offer five ways to know that hell is not “eternal conscious torment.” Like Aquinas, my arguments will be philosophical in nature. Though I think there are many solid biblical reasons for rejecting the traditional view of hell, these arguments will be based on deductive thinking, and today we come to a third way. Way... Read more
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death in a Federal court. American law permits the death penalty in some cases and in some states. The issue is then not just what the American law permits as justifiable punishment (lex talionis) but how Christians are to think about capital punishment and the death penalty. I shall make the case today that Christians ought to renounce the death penalty. First, the OT clearly contains legislation about capital punishment. The famous lex talionis of Exodus... Read more
NPR, by Rob Stein: The seasons appear to influence when certain genes are active, with those associated with inflammation being more active in the winter, according to new research released Tuesday. A study involving more than 16,000 people found that the activity of about 4,000 of those genes appears to be affected by the season, researchers reported in the journalNature Communications. The findings could help explain why certain diseases are more likely than others to strike for the first time during certain... Read more
Thomistic Bent, where you can read a fuller sketch…. or go to her book to read her own account: Dr. Holly Ordway has published a book titled Not God’s Type, telling her personal story. She begins “I had never in my life said a prayer, never been to a church service. Christmas meant presents and Easter meant chocolate bunnies–nothing more.” But her views get hardened: “In college, I absorbed the idea that Christianity was historical curiosity, or a blemish on... Read more
O God, the King of glory, You have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, But send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, And exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. Read more
Brian Hutchinson: VANCOUVER — There was Patrick Stewart, PhD candidate, defending his final dissertation before a handful of hard-nosed examiners at the University of British Columbia late last month. The public was invited to watch; two dozen curious onlookers saw Stewart attempt to persuade five panelists that his 149-page thesis has merit, that it is neither outlandishly “deficient,” as some had insisted it was, nor an intellectual affront. Unusual? It is definitely that. Stewart’s dissertation, titled Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous... Read more
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