Good morning! Another week of meanderings for your morning reading. Jim Stump, science and faith and the conflict? What can be done about this? My suggestion, first, is to recognize that any perceived conflict is not between the Bible and science, but between theology and science. We already understand that science is our own making, our attempt to explain and make sense of the data we find in the natural world. It is easy, then, to understand that we sometimes... Read more

By Mike Glenn If you’re in the South for any length of time, someone will use the phrase “fixin’ to get ready”. Usually someone will say, “I’m fixin’ to get ready to go the store. Want to go with me?” Notice how the phrase is used. Someone wants to go to the store, but they’re not going to the store yet. They need to get ready to go to the store, but they aren’t getting ready yet. They’re “fixin’ to... Read more

Here you go: Description: The Second Testament: A New Translation – KR 111 Most people engage with the Bible through a translation. Scot unpacks the vast landscape of the different English Bible translations and shares where he sees his new translation of The Second Testament fitting in the landscape. The Second Testament will be a translation that is shaped to sound and feel like the Greek language the New Testament is written. Want to ask Scot a question for the... Read more

It is common to use concepts such as purposeless and random to describe biological evolution. Stephen Jay Gould famously describes evolution as a tape which if run over would reach an entirely different result. We are a contingent accident in an impersonal and purposeless world. Denis Alexander explores this idea in his new book Is There Purpose in Biology? Purpose and purposelessness are metaphysical concepts that have little real meaning in biology. Yet, we are intelligent reasoning animals interested in... Read more

Apocalyptic nightmares are often tossed to congregations hoping to get the amygdala stimulated enough to change directions or support a cause or give money or get baptized … whatever. The issue in apocalyptic visions is survival. The question is either How do we survive? or Can we even survive? American preachers and politicians and parents have been preaching this apocalyptic message all along — since our nation’s founding. But it’s nothing new. Ancient Israel faced survival questions many times, and... Read more

Jill Schlesinger: NEW YORK — A growing number of shoppers will be supporting their independent neighborhood bookstores on Small Business Saturday. After nearly being wiped out a decade ago, small bookstores are booming. Dane Neller, the owner of Shakespeare & Co. in New York City, just opened his third indie bookstore, and he’s proving the naysayers wrong. “Bookstores are back and they’re back in a big way,” he said. “I’m not given to to hyperbole — it was record-breaking for us.” The... Read more

Juliet Linderman: WASHINGTON (AP) — Mark Robbins gets to work at 8:15 each morning and unlocks the door to his office suite. He switches on the lights and the TV news, brews a pot of coffee and pulls out the first files of the day to review. For the next eight hours or so, he reads through federal workplace disputes, analyzes the cases, marks them with notes and logs his legal opinions. When he’s finished, he slips the files into... Read more

Andy Walsh, Faith Across the Multiverse mixes fiction (usually science fiction of a sort), math, science, and the bible to explore our understanding of the Christian faith and the ways it can be made to live in our times. This is not some “new” gospel or modernized faith, rather it is using imagery and understanding to tell the same story again. Parables, as it were, for the 21st century. In chapter 3 he tackles grace, determinism, and the sovereignty of... Read more

In his new book, How New is the New Testament?, Don Hagner examines the theme of “newness” in the New Testament. He concludes that there is both discontinuity and continuity. So far not controversial. The issue is of course “how” new is the New Testament? Hagner states in conclusion what is new and what strikes the chord of discontinuity, and notice all the “new” things in the era of Jesus: For our purposes, the significant occurrences of the word “new’... Read more