Jon Merritt’s interview with Andy Stanley, about Andy’s new book: RNS: Jesus begins his ministry by proclaiming good news to the poor, he advocated for the poor and he was suspicious of wealth–like when he said, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Is that message more difficult to preach in a society like the U.S.? Are these biblical themes of helping the poor,... Read more
Chicago Tribune: A driver who zooms down the road with one hand on the wheel and the other propping a cellphone against an ear soon could find that choice a costly one — a new state law taking effect Wednesday bans the use of hand-held devices while driving in Illinois. Motorists still can chat and drive, but only if they use hands-free technology such as a Bluetooth device, earpiece, headset or speakerphone. Otherwise, they’ll need to put it in park... Read more
Most White Evangelicals Are Not. The Pew Research Center recently released the results of a poll on views of human evolution in the US. The poll reports that 60% of adults in the US believe that humans and other living things have evolved over time, 33% believe that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time and 7% didn’t know or didn’t answer. A question substituting the word “animals” for “humans” gave... Read more
Evangelicals have written the story of liberalism and that story, reluctantly but seemingly irresistibly, has been absorbed by liberals themselves. That story is that liberals have surrendered key theological beliefs and their churches are in rapid descent and the former led to the latter. Oddly, though liberalism has been for more than a century been perched in fat and pretty in positions of power, it has never bothered to tell their own story through their lens in a compelling way.... Read more
My friend, Sam, bought and gave me a copy of The Old Man and the Sea at the Hemingway House in Key West, and so I sat down and read the thing yet again. The award-winning novel has a rather simple plot — the old man goes fishing, catches a big marlin, fights the thing for days, finally it dies, the old man returns only to have sharks tear the meat off the bones of the marlin — he collapses... Read more
I make no claim to be complete or comprehensive or even fair to the book world. Each year I nominate Books of the Year on the basis of books I become aware of, not on the basis of a comprehensive list of books. So, here are my this year’s nominations. If you have others, speak up and give the New Year’s a push forward. NT Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, the 4th volume in N.T. Wright’s massive work... Read more
Kris and I admit to being more than a little hopeful that Paraclete will send us their famous and ridiculously tasty cinnamon bread and apple pie jam gift for Christmas, and this one arrived just in time to usher in the New Year! Read more
Time: New York, once the largest state in the Union, will soon fall to fourth-largest, demographers predict. Florida, with growing population hubs in Jacksonville, Miami-Dade County and Tampa, will likely overtake or come close to the northeast state in the Census Bureau data to be released Monday, the New York Times reports. If not Monday, experts say it will happen sometime next year. An influx of immigrants — and about 50,000 retiring New Yorkers a year — have boosted Florida’s population to soon... Read more
Faith-based biology is not limited to conservative Christians and other theists. Neither is appreciation of the powers of science limited to atheists and agnostics. Recently I read a short book Neither Gods Nor Beasts by Elof Axel Carlson. Carlson is a geneticist who taught biology for decades at UCLA and at Stony Brook. He calls himself a non-theist, and has little appreciation for religious faith. He is not, however, a militant atheist. The premise of his book is that humans... Read more
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