Which of these statements by Bonhoeffer about costly vs. cheap grace is your favorite? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (DBWE 4). #1: Cheap grace means grace as doctrine, as principle, as system. It means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God’s love as merely a Christian idea of God. Those who affirm it have already had their sins forgiven. The church that teaches this doctrine of grace thereby confers such grace upon itself. The world finds in this church... Read more
Jonathan Hill, an assistant professor of sociology at Calvin College, recently released the results of a National Study of Religion & Human Origins. This study was funded by the Evolution and Christian Faith grants program at BioLogos and you can find a link to the full report with a summary of the major findings in Jonathan’s post The Recipe For Creationism on the BioLogos Forum. Most surveys that probe questions of science and faith, including beliefs about creation and human... Read more
A kingdom is a people ruled by a king just as an empire is a people ruled by an emperor. The character of the king determines the character of the kingdom just as the character of the emperor determines the character of the empire. We know the stories of ruthless emperors or at least the ruthless acts of emperors who are more or less authorized by military force (from Augustus to Hitler and Stalin). That ruthlessness impacts the people of the empire both toward fear... Read more
Mike Volpe: At most companies in the United States, vacation starts in the most unrelaxing way possible: permission slips. Accruing enough time to go on vacation then having to ask for permission to do so feels more like a fifth grade field trip than a grown-up getaway. Still, far too many companies rely upon the status quo to inform vacation policies. At HubSpot, we think that’s archaic, so we designed a policy that allows employees to build their work around... Read more
This post is by Tim Spivey, pastor at New Vintage Church. I wasn’t raised in a tradition known for its robust celebration of Advent. We weren’t entirely anti-Christmas. Christmas itself was great—it just didn’t have a lot to do with Christianity, as we saw it. Over the years, my mind has completely changed on this. In fact, Advent and Christmas have come to be one of the most important spiritual times of the year for me and our church. Here... Read more
Some say Yes and some say No. Strident voices are heard on both sides. Strident-voice-folks often have small ears. For those with ears, the question in the title to this post is a real one. No one today has written more fairly about this topic than Denis Alexander, Emeritus Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, St Edmund s College, Cambridge (www.faraday-institute.org), where he is Emeritus Fellow. I am happy to announce he has edited and revised and... Read more
We live 2-4,000 years removed from what can be called Bible times. Think just for a minute of all that has changed: Life expectancies, relationships of husbands and wives and children and parents and “citizens” and leaders; food and drink; cultures and religious festivals and worship centers; the relationship of individual and state and of religion and state; divine right of kings and rulers and attitudes toward other countries and leaders; languages … and think about education and reading and... Read more
From Arise Newsletter. Damaris Miranda received her doctorate in clinical psychology and masters in social work from Rutgers and her master of divinity from New Brunswick Theological Seminary. She has served for over forty years in urban ministry and currently co-pastors with her siblings atAction In Christ International. Damaris is also on the staff of a major medical center where she provides mental health services to children and their families. Damaris is a speaker, retreat leader, and singer-songwriter. I was... Read more
The first three interviews in Science and Religion: 5 Questions are with fairly outspoken skeptics of religion (something of a coincidence as the order is strictly alphabetical) – Simon Blackburn, Susan Blackmore, and Sean Carroll. The views they put forth are worth some consideration as these questions and concerns are raised by many others in our society. For each of them science is rather well defined – the empirically verified understanding of the nature of the material world, but religion... Read more
A young — yes, a young African American — man lay dead on the street. A policeman — yes, a white — policeman was alive with gun in hand, adrenalin flowing, heart pounding, mind racing. That hot gun was one of the tools of his trade. I raise two questions: Why was the policeman white? Why not black? To be sure, we do not want a world where white policeman police white folk and black policeman police black folk. But... Read more
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