Sean Carroll, a theoretical cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology has an article Does the Universe Need God? in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity edited by J. B. Stump and Alan Padgett. Sean Carroll’s article has also received a bit of press lately. I was sent links to an article by Natalie Wolchover by two different readers: Will Science Someday Rule Out the Possibility of God? (HT MB), also published on Huffington Post (HT R). Over the past... Read more
That last fifty years or so has seen an area of deep and troubling turbulence in the church, and the turbulence revolves around one question: What is the church? Or, perhaps, Where is the church? From the Jesus movement of the 60s to the spiritual gifts movement under Ray Stedman to the church growth movement and the megachurches to the emerging movement and the liturgical movement and the ancient-future movement to the no church church movement to the organic church... Read more
Kris and I are amateur birders, and we have a well-worn Roger Tory Peterson Guide to prove we’ve been at it awhile. Neither of us is good at bird calls, but I envy those who can identify the odd migrating warbler by sounds/songs. I can’t, though I know most of the birds in our area. I “observed” a nuthatch at Northern Seminary’s president’s home the other day (at our retreat) before I saw the little thing land on their plentiful... Read more
When it comes to evolutionary theories of the mind, I read this the other day that showed a welcome humility about what we know and what we don’t. From Anthony Gottlieb: Today’s biologists tend to be cautious about labelling any trait an evolutionary adaptation—that is, one that spread through a population because it provided a reproductive advantage. It’s a concept that is easily abused, and often “invoked to resolve problems that do not exist,” the late George Williams, an influential... Read more
Let us say that a church alive is marked by Christlikeness among the people, worship of God, love and compassion and mission toward others … and other such marks. Let us also say it is marked by the church’s classic marks: one, holy, catholic and apostolic. And we must root this all in gospel and Trinity. Our culture works against a church alive and if we let culture shape us we can create a lifeless church, though any church that... Read more
Letting Genesis be Genesis is a challenge — from the creationist, who wants it to be compatible with science or science with it, to the naturalist-evolutionist, who wants to debunk the text from the outset as hocus pocus. Both ends of the spectrum claim they are reading Genesis well, but not all have paid sufficient attention to the internal clues in the text. Walter Moberly, well known Old Testament specialist at Durham University in England, has the internal clues in... Read more
By Richard Florida, from The Atlantic, where you can read the full article: More than one in seven young Americans are “disconnected” from work and from school, according to a report released Thursday by the Social Science Research Council‘s Measure of America project. The report (PDF) is based on data from the U.S. Census and American Community Survey, and looks specifically at the numbers of young people aged 16 to 24 who are not working nor enrolled in school. The... Read more
Peter Bouteneff, in the second chapter of his book Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives, discusses the uses of the creation narrative in the New Testament. The most important New Testament references are in the Pauline literature – which Bouteneff takes to include Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, as well as the more commonly accepted Pauline canon, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon (more commonly accepted within within biblical scholarship that is).... Read more
Christian orthodoxy’s postage stamp is that the resurrection occurred. What really matters, the letter or the envelope, is the crucifixion. We argue intelligently and vociferously and annually (at Easter) that the resurrection occurred, we denounce those who say it didn’t happen, and we applaud those who defend it in apologetics. And it matters enormously for our hope beyond the grave. But beyond the that the resurrection doesn’t seem to matter. It’s little more than a postage stamp. In college a tongues-speaking... Read more
Most of us see why Mayor Bloomberg wants to ban supersized sugary drinks, but the issue is Who makes that decision (if not the seller of the product)? and What’s next? Mark Roberts weighs in: I’m all in favor of Americans (including me) cutting down on calories, especially empty ones. But I’m not all in favor of the government mandating such things. I wonder what will come next? Surely there are other unhealthy foods that Mayor Bloomberg and his pals... Read more
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